Pen Sword: 3374 books

The author, who as a senior member of Mrs. Thatcher's Government was tragically assassinated by the IRA, had the most distinguished of war records. Wounded and taken prisoner in the desperate fighting at Calais in 1940, he became a compulsive escaper and the first one of the very few to make a 'home-run'...

In 53BC the Proconsul Marcus Crassus and 36,000 of his legionaries were crushed by the Parthians at Carrhae in what is now eastern Turkey. Crassus' defeat and death and the 20,000 casualties his army suffered were an extraordinary disaster for Rome. The event intensified the bitter, destructive struggle...

In 490 BC Darius I, Great King of Persia and the most powerful man in the world, led a massive invasion army to punish the interference of some minor states on the western borders of his huge empire. The main enemy was Athens. The resultant Battle of Marathon was a disaster for Darius and one of the...

When the dying Alexander the Great was asked to whom he bequeathed his vast empire, he supposedly replied 'to the strongest'. There ensued a long series of struggles between his generals and governors for control of these territories. Most of these Diadochi (Successors) were consummate professionals...

Alfred Burrages War is War is his sincere and successful attempt to record his experiences as a private soldier in France during the First World War, his reactions to abnormal conditions and his observations. Written in the 1920s he wanted the curious to know what war was really like. Burrage realised...

The story of the Battle of Waterloo of the ultimate defeat of Napoleon and the French, the triumph of Wellington, Blücher and their allied armies - is most often told from the viewpoint of the victors, not the vanquished. Even after 200 years of intensive research and the publication of hundreds...

Sturmgeschütz III was originally designed as an assault weapon, but as war progressed it was increasingly used in a defensive role and evolved into an assault gun and tank destroyer. By 1943 its main role was providing anti-tank support to the units in its area of operation. This consequently led...

The U-Boat war is a unique visual record of Hitler`s infamous submarine fleet and a grim account of those that lived, worked and risked their lives stalking the depths of the Atlantic and Mediterranean seas. The book analyses the development of the U-boat, the recruitment and training, and...

The Soviet T-34 medium tank was one of the most famous and effective fighting vehicles of the Second World War. Along with the German Tiger and the American Sherman, it was a milestone in tank design that changed the course of the conflict. Much has been written about the technical history of the...

This book examines the reality behind the myths of the legendary German fighter aces of World War II. It explains why only a small minority of pilots - those in whom the desire for combat overrode everything - accounted for so large a proportion of the victories. It surveys the skills that a successful...

John Killen's exhaustive work is a study of German air power between 1915 and 1945, from the early days of flying when Immelmann, Boelke, Richtofen and other First World War aces fought and died to give Germany air supremacy, to the nightmare existence of the Luftwaffe as the Third Reich plunged headlong...

The Influence of Air Power upon History makes a startlingly new analysis of the far-reaching implications flight has had on warfare, politics, diplomacy, technology and mass culture. Author Walter Boyne examines the application of air power from the very earliest days of the balloon down to the current...

22 June 1941 changed the direction of the Second World War. It also changed the direction of human history. Unleashing a massive, three-pronged assault into Soviet territory, the German army unwittingly created its own nemesis, forging the modern Russian state in the process. Thus, for most Russians,...

What was life in the Red Army like for the ordinary soldier during the Great Patriotic War, the fight between the Soviet Union and Germany on the Eastern Front? How far is the common perception of Red Army heroism and sacrifice borne out by historical reality? And what was the daily experience of...