Legion versus Phalanx

I struggled with this book. The author admits that it’s about almost everything except a direct comparison of the legion and the phalanx. After a short introduction to ancient military tactics, it pretty quickly launches into a long history of ancient warfare and battles.

About halfway through this, disaster struck. My Kindle somehow lost its place and launched me 20-30% further in the book than I was. To my horror, I realized that I couldn’t find my way back – all the history I was reading had kind of run together, and I had no idea where I was in the book.

So, I consulted the table of contents, and decided to skip forward to the last 20%, which comes after all the history and brought everything together to say – I gather – that the legion won.

In the end, I estimate that I read 65% of the book.

There’s no question that the author knows what he’s talking about, but this is very much a book for someone obsessed with ancient warfare and military tactics (and I clearly should have surmised that from the title).

So, good book, just wrong audience. I’m not providing a star rating for that reason – I didn’t click with this book, but it wasn’t the book’s fault.

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