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John Childs

Författare till Warfare in the Seventeenth Century

7+ verk 215 medlemmar 2 recensioner

Om författaren

John Childs is professor of military history and director of the Centre of Military History at the University of Leeds.

Verk av John Childs

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Great Commanders of the Early Modern World, 1583–1865 (1721) — Bidragsgivare — 25 exemplar

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Childs, John Charles Roger
Födelsedag
1949-06-21
Kön
male
Nationalitet
UK
Yrken
historian
professor

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The overthrow of King James II during the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688 is one of the key events of not just English history but Irish history as well. As king, James had pursued a policy of “Catholicization” in Ireland, allowing Catholics to serve in the army and the government, which fueled anxieties among the Protestant population. When news reached them of the dramatic events in England, the Protestants began defying the Catholic authorities, who responded to what soon became an uprising against Catholic rule. The result was three of the bloodiest and most destructive years in Irish history, as the island served as the battlefield on which broader struggles were waged. This war is the subject of John Childs’s book, which details the campaigns from the initial unrest to the conclusion of the conflict.

Childs traces the success of the rebellion to the two-week period in 1688 when Derry was without a garrison, arguing that had the town been continuously occupied and the Protestants there suppressed the rebellion could not have prospered. Yet even with Derry the Protestants faced a difficult first year, as the more numerous Catholic forces gradually asserted control throughout the island. By the summer, only Derry and Enniskillen remained as Protestant holdouts, yet the arrival of forces under the command of the Duke of Schomberg managed to secure most of Ulster before the end of the campaigning season. The new year saw an increased commitment of forces against the Catholics, one led by King William III himself. With William’s army pressing down from the north, the two sides clashed at the Battle of the Boyne, which broke James’s fragile resolve. His flight left his supporters with no other option than an attrition campaign that could buy them time in the hope that William might suffer defeats elsewhere that would salvage the situation for them.

Childs recounts the conflict in considerable detail, carefully tracing the numerous skirmishes that characterized the “war of posts and ambuscades”. This results in a dense text, one that makes it challenging to follow the sequence of events. Making matters worse are the inadequate maps provided, which provide only basic geographic details, rendering them less than helpful in following the various battles and campaigns. Better maps and subheadings within the chapters would have gone far into providing a more accessible history of the war than the one Childs has written, in which the value of his examination of the conflict is offset by its inaccessibility.
… (mer)
 
Flaggad
MacDad | Mar 27, 2020 |
Summarizing a century of warfare in approximately 200 pages is, as John Childs acknowledges in the introduction, a challenge involving choices of inclusion and omission. Childs's choice is to offer only a compressed account of the various campaigns in favor of focusing on the waging of war in Europe in the 17th century. While Childs does include summaries of the key wars waged during this time - three of his chapters provide accounts of the Thirty Years' War, the wars of Louis XIV, and the other prominent conflicts of the era - such an approach allows him to use the battles of the period to illustrate the techniques and tactics of war in those decades.

By freeing himself from the burden of a detailed account of the disparate conflicts which spanned the period, Childs is able to provide a perceptive account of European warfare in the 17th century. He uses the Thirty Years War to illustrate the problems posed by mercenary armies, problems which led to their replacement by the end of the century with standing national armies. Such forces increased the need for better organization and taxation, which reinforced the trends towards greater centralization and monarchial authority. Yet Childs is dismissive that these developments reflect a "military revolution" in early modern Europe, pointing out sensibly that the developments and their timespan reflect more of an evolutionary development rather than an revolutionary one.

With its helpful maps, numerous illustrations, and useful glossary, Childs's book is a good introduction to the evolution of combat in early modern Europe. It offers information on nearly every aspect of warfare, from tactics to personnel to logistics, along with a bibliography for anyone seeking to continue their readings on the subjects the author has covered. For anyone seeking a starting point to understanding the wars of the era or how combat changed over the course of the 17th century, this is the book to read.
… (mer)
 
Flaggad
MacDad | Mar 27, 2020 |

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Statistik

Verk
7
Även av
1
Medlemmar
215
Popularitet
#103,625
Betyg
½ 3.5
Recensioner
2
ISBN
23
Språk
2

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