The Piper Cub is interested in military history and asked me if I knew a book about different battles. I tried looking on Amazon and one of their search engine’s top recommendations was: The Silmarillion. Thanks, Mr Bezos.
Any Dopers have recommendations for young adult / teen level “20 Major Battles in World History” or something like that?
Any more direction than that? Ancient? Modern? Overview or detail? Strategy or tactics? Weapons or personalities? For example, my library has both a trade paperback on the Gettysburg Campaign, covering 2+ months of the war with lots of maps in less than 200 pages. I also have a tome on the second day of the actual battle that totals over 1000 pages.
In this case, I’d recommend the Cub make a very general and loose list of battles, then hit wiki for general outlines and such. If it is on interest, start exploring the source cites for the article. That’s a lot cheaper than buying books based on the recs of weirdos like us.
If you don’t mind shelling out some dough, there’s John C. Fredriksen’s Chronology of American Military History. It’s a well-reviewed reference book, but to own this three volume set would set you back a couple hundred.
Actually, I’m trying to get him to do more book-reading - i know video is the future, etc., but I think the discipline of turning pages is important as well.
I was thinking more like: Marathon - Salamis - Horns of Hattin - Hastings - Agincourt - Waterloo - Gettysburg - Somme - Dieppe - D-Day - Hiroshima ; that sort of thing.
Plus, he actually asked for a book!
That’s why I suggested some general research first. For example, if you want to study the Battle of Marathon, you need to read Herodotus. He’s about our only source for info on the battle. For general reading try Edward Creasy’s Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World or James Lacey & Williamson Murray’s book Moment of Battle. Those are off the top of my pointed little head. When I get to my classroom this evening I’ll look for some others on my shelves.
Back last century, our high school library had A History of Warfare, written by none other than Montgomery of Alemein. Lots of pictures, text pitched at a good general readership, weight of authority and all that.
If you don’t mind them missing out on the past ~half century of warfare, then its probaby still a good starting point, but would require some second-hand bookshop hunting.
At a more detailed level, anything by Jeremy Black, former history professor. Despite his website, he’s probably not a real person at all but a cellar full of enslaved military historians forced to churn out reams and reams of very readable and sumptuously illustrated books on military history.
I can personally recommend British historian John Keegan’s The Face of Battle and Fields of Battle: The Wars for North America. Not specifically YA, but definitely readable.
I first read Edward Jablonski’s The Great War: Stories of World War I when I was in fifth or sixth grade, and would do so again today.
I got a copy of Bruce Bliven’s The Story of D-Day: June 6, 1944 for Christmas when I was 10 or 11. It was one of the Landmark series of books, which were always good.
I would bet Piper Cub would devour the book below. It’s a lot less scholarly than the recommendations in this thread so far, but neither is it bowdlerized throwaway writing. An excellent overview that moves through history from Ancient Egypt through Desert Storm.
This is a giant book that lets the reader jump around through the centuries finding just about every battle in the history of human combat. It doesn’t need to be read cover to cover; just open it up anywhere and start reading.
One of my favorite books to read as a kid was called " Dirty Little Secrets of World War II" by James Dunnigan which is a book that has hundreds of short items that either debunk a WW2 myth, elaborate on some lesser known WW2 facts or gives very interesting anecdotes about combat effectiveness of various armies. It’s extremely digestible and got me interested in finding more detailed stories on the various topics it covered.
For example on it’s chapter on Pearl Harbor it brings up the fact at the time there was a popular conspiracy theory in certain American circles that Pearl Harbor was a false flag done by British airplanes that took off from Maui and attacked Oahu.
Just here to second Keegan’s The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme. A little Anglo-centric (!) but the introduction might be something of a slog.
If he’s something of a numbers/analytical type, he might like this (also by James F. Dunnigan):
It’s a book written by a military analyst that describes how nations fight- how the various components- equipment, leadership, attacking, defending, etc… all come together. And it describes it with historical examples, and has a fair bit on how to use the info in the book predictively as well.
As far as history for a teenager goes… can’t really help. My junior military history wonk is 11, and is a big fan of tthe “Guts and Glory” series of kid military history books, and I think those are a bit young for your child.
Seconding this book. An excellent read and as EJF notes, you can dive into it anywhere.
Once upon a time, I bought my kid some book of the worst military disasters that he enjoyed. It was one of those Barnes & Noble published ones you find on the discount racks near the registers. This one might be it.
Two things in its favor were that it was in bite-sized pieces – read about this battle or that battle – and that “worst defeats in history” immediately makes for a compelling topic. Each story comes immediately packaged with a narrative of how one guy massively screwed up or some environmental calamity made all the difference. It’s also pretty cheap and intended for a teen audience so probably low risk.