WARFARE

Michael Palmer,Batsford Past-into-Present Series 1972.

Warfare is rooted in man’s aggressive instincts and began in primitive hand-to-hand combats. Michael Palmer traces its development from ancient times to the present day (1972), with its almost unlimited technical resources.

He begins with an account of mediaeval warfare in which armed knights fought each other on horseback and could call on their feudal vassals to follow them. Their supremacy gave way to that of the archer.

The English longbow, in particular, was used to devastating effect by Henry V at Agincourt in 1415. But the archers in their turn were superseded by the invention of gunpowder and its use in cannon, and later muskets.

The story of warfare from then onwards is largely one of the increasing power and efficiency of weapons – from the rifle and the machine gun to the tank, the aeroplane and the atomic bomb.

 Apart from the jacket having been price clipped, both the book and the dust jacket are in very good condition, the pages are clean and tightly bound.