cover image BATTLEGROUNDS: Geography and the Art of Warfare

BATTLEGROUNDS: Geography and the Art of Warfare

, . . National Geographic, $35 (288pp) ISBN 978-0-7922-3374-9

Thirteen sections, each featuring a type of terrain or geographical feature, assess geography's role in determining military strategy and tactics. Extensively illustrated with maps and photos, each chapter contains two to four short summaries of battles or campaigns penned by distinguished military historians: Joseph Alexander, Gary Gallagher, Eric Bergerud and Bryan Perrett are all represented. The articles discuss the military difficulties presented by local geographies: movement is slow and visibility poor in forests, such as the Southeast Asia's Ia Drang Valley or the Teutoberger Wald of Germany circa 9 A.D. The classification of features and problems lends itself to difficulties, however: Yorktown and Bataan illustrate being trapped on a peninsula, but so does Gallipoli, which is for some reason in the "Coasts" section along with Marathon and Tarawa. Add to this the fact that contemporary and historical maps are merrily mixed, which can be misleading in terms of accuracy. On the whole, the book is a trifle superficial for the serious military student, but that level of background knowledge is needed to get full value from some of the articles and most of the maps. (Oct. )