This book is a retelling of the love affair between Heathcliff and Cathy, as told through Cathy's eyes in her journal. I've read a lot of sequels to great classics and this is the first book that has ever come close to the original. The book/journal begins in the last few weeks of Cathy's life as Mrs. Linton. The entries following describe Cathy's first meeting with Heathcliff, their blossoming love affair which is graphic yet lyrical, and the anguish Cathy feels when she gives up Heathcliff. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to recapture the feeling they had the first time they read Wuthering Heights.

From Abbas (Persian conqueror), to Zhukov (World War II Marshal of the Soviet Union), the authors have listed all the significant military figures, not only the famous combat commanders, but also the great organizers of victories, thinkers and theorists, and military technocrats, and not forgetting the heroes, "symbols of daring and romance".
Each entry is succinct but comprehensive, and the authors are refreshingly not reluctant to evaluate the historical reputations of the great.
Very readable, and with helpful glossary and maps, this work will find a place on the shelf of the most experienced reader of military history, as well as the more casual reader.
(The numerical rating above is a default setting within Amazon's format. This reviewer does not employ numerical ratings.)

The selections are on the whole good. And there are too few books of this kind within easy reach. The authors wisely limit themselves to the age of firearms, or else the book would have been ten times as long. On the other hand, some of the greatest captains in warfare are conveniently omitted by this criterion: Alexander, Qin Shihuang, Caesar, Muhammed, William the Conqueror, Genghis, etc. There is some European, especially British, bias in the selections. But the same may be said of any book of this kind written by any other nationals. The biggest oddity is the lack of entries of any of the top leaders of World War II with the exception of Hitler. Stalin's performance as "generalissimo" left much to be desired - particularly if you're Russian - but he was nonetheless on the side of the winners, and no one can argue he was not a bloody important C-in C.

Frederick the Great gets the longest entry of the whole book. Well-earned. There can be no doubt as to Frederick's greatness as military leader - he was truly great in all aspects of warmaking: strategy, tactics, field command, logistics, personnel, diplomacy. And he had to govern a kingdom at the same time - while finding time for books, conversation, prolific writing, and composing music simultaneously! Yet Frederick owed his reputation and even his personal survival to a great stroke of luck (the death of Tsarina Elizabeth). Perhaps even he himself would have preferred a victory under different circumstances.

Marlborough is billed as the greatest soldier in British history. Wellington is a close second, while Churchill (not mentioned in the book), who was Marlborough's descendant and who idolized Marlborough, was at least as important, in my opionion -though Churchill was as repulsive a man as Marlborough was charming. It's astonishing how Marlborough owed his career to women from start to finish. He got his first important job through his sister's connections to the court, made his early fortune as gigolo of Charles II's mistress, and received his commission at the highest rank from Queen Anne - by virtue of his wife's friendship with her. Probably no upstart from such an obscure background could have risen to such heights except by his good looks and luck with women (admittedly on top of real abilities). (But the same cannot be said of another great warrior of the early modern age: Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who came from an even lower class.) In any case, I agree with Keegan's judgement on Marlborough, as well as with the fact that his entry is much longer than Wellington's.

Interestingly, Keegan's comment on Napoleon was slighting -"Napoleon was not unimportant in military history" was what he is saying in effect. Well, none other than Wellington himself had this to say about Bonaparte as to who was the greatest soldier in his age: "In this age, in past ages, in any age, Napoleon." The fact that Napoleon made great strategic errors definitely tarnished his reputation, no doubt, and Wellington was probably puffing up himself at the same time with this remark. But Keegan's views on Napoleon seem inadequate at best.

Keegan trashes Lawrence of Arabia, but Liddell Hart and Michael Howard both rate him highly.

I'm familiar enough with Keegan's books to know that his opinions can be very odd in places. Sometimes I wonder if I can count on him to think clearly. But this book is still a useful reference tool which I use often.

This is a splendid resource for understanding military history and is particularly strong on the cross-referencing. Well illustrated too, with a real gem of Monty (in color). Apart from the occasional lurch into abuse (they REALLY don't like Kitchener) the biographies are objective, and give the subject exactly as much space as needed. I wish the editors had decided to go out on a limb and publish a pre-1453 version - they use this as a cut off because they don't think medieval and ancient sources are as reliable as renaissance and modern - but you can't have everything.

Zones of Conflict has not yet been surpassed by other published works, mostly because others focus on specific regions. This is still a valuable work, largely because of the process and the framework it provides for thinking about geographically and culturally based sources of conflict. Published in 1986 it missed some big ones: Somalia, Rwandi-Burundi, the Congo, the break-up of Yugoslavia with the Kosovo aftermath. We'll give them credit for the Gulf flashpoint. What's the point? No one can predict with any certainty where major humanitarian conflicts will emerge, but if one combines Keegan and Wheatcroft's approach with environmental and economic and social overlays (such as are offered by several other "States of the World" endeavors), then a useful starting point is available for asking two important questions: what kinds of conflicts will we be dealing with, under what kinds of terrain and cultural conditions; and second, given those realities, what kinds of forces and capabilties should we be developing? Against this model, the U.S. Joint 2020 vision falls woefully short, and the NATO alliance appears equally unprepared for a future that will be characterized by "dirty little wars" well out of NATO's area but highly relevant to the well-being of the NATO population. One might also make the somewhat puckish point that it does not take a $30 billion dollar a year spy community to create a common-sense strategic document such as this--it can be had for under $20.