The Battle Lost And Won

The second vol. of her Levant trilogy; the 1st is The danger tree, and the 3d is The sum of things.

Murder mayhem and magic.Pushed by his wife to seize the throne Macbeth kills his rightful liege and then tries desperately to hold onto the kingdom that he has wrongfully usurped. Prophesy and magic abound in this dark moody and atmospheric play.Out damned spot! Out I say!One- two -why then 'tis time to do't. Hell is murky. Fie my lord fie! A soldier and afeard? What need we fear who knows it when none can call ourpower to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?

'And when I shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars.' This collection of Shakespeare's soliloquies, including both old favourites and lesser-known pieces, shows him at his dazzling best. One of 46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. Each book gives readers a taste of the Classics' huge range and diversity, with works from around the world and across the centuries - including fables, decadence, heartbreak, tall tales, satire, ghosts, battles and elephants.

History has tended to measure war's winners and losers in terms of its major engagements, battles in which the result was so clear-cut that they could be considered "decisive." Cannae, Konigsberg, Austerlitz, Midway, Agincourt-all resonate in the literature of war and in our imaginations as tide-turning. But these legendary battles may or may not have determined the final outcome of the wars in which they were fought. Nor has the "genius" of the so-called Great Captains - from Alexander the Great to Frederick the Great and Napoleon - play a major role. Wars are decided in other ways. Cathal J. Nolan's The Allure of Battle systematically and engrossingly examines the great battles, tracing what he calls "short-war thinking," the hope that victory might be swift and wars brief. As he proves persuasively, however, such has almost never been the case. Even the major engagements have mainly contributed to victory or defeat by accelerating the erosion of the other side's defences. Massive conflicts, the so-called "people's wars," beginning with Napoleon and continuing until 1945, have consisted of and been determined by prolonged stalemate and attrition, industrial wars in which the determining factor has been not military but matériel. Nolan's masterful book places battles squarely and mercilessly within the context of the wider conflict in which they took place. In the process it help corrects a distorted view of battle's role in war, replacing popular images of the "battles of annihilation" with somber appreciation of the commitments and human sacrifices made throughout centuries of war particularly among the Great Powers. Accessible, provocative, exhaustive, and illuminating, The Allure of Battle will spark fresh debate about the history and conduct of warfare.