OLD DUFFER'S
BOOK CORNER

War and Society in
Early Modern Europe 1495-1715

Frank Tallet for Routledge

Writing books on Renaissance/Reformation military history (and this book seldom goes beyond the 1670s) is a difficult task because squatting in the midst of the road is J.R.Hale's splendid War and Society in Renaissance Europe one of those Braudel-esque books that are the fruits of many years reading and research. Tallett manages to overcome this handicap by writing a book that sits alongside Hale with ease. Perhaps it is the effluction of time, perhaps the retreat of the Geoffrey Best - "we hate military history" brigade, but the tactical issues are more fully addressed than was the case with Hale while retaining the important element of setting the thing in context.

My suspicion was always that the Roberts-Parker nexus could see the technical changes but not why real generals applied them in practice. Eltis and Tallett are beginning to do this and for brief moments I thought I could see a line of tactical thinking in (for example) pike tactics that had that element of trial-and-error with which the real military handles these matters. "Context" books have to present a number of views (without using the phrase "on the other hand" too often) and then meld them. I believe Tallett got closer than many to the real reasons men "trailed the puissant pike" and the methods by which Governments employed them once they were in trail mode.

More Book Corner:

Back to Perfidious Albion #95 Table of Contents
Back to Perfidious Albion List of Issues
Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 1997 by Charles and Teresa Vasey.
This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com