Ancient Warfare: Introducing Current Research, Volume I

This volume provides chapters on current research into ancient warfare. It is a collection with a wide-range, covering a long chronological spread, with many historical themes, including some that have recently been rather neglected. It has wide academic relevance to a number of on-going debates on themes in ancient warfare. Each topic covered is coherently presented, and offers convincing coverage of the subject area. There is a high standard of scholarship and presentation; chapters are well documented with extensive bibliographies. It is readable and successful in engaging the reader’s attention, and presents subject matter in an accessible way. The book will particularly appeal to professional historians, students and a wider audience of those interested in ancient warfare.


Geoff Lee is an independent researcher, and holds a MA in Ancient History and Classical Studies. He researches ancient amphibious warfare and is the organiser of the International Ancient Warfare Conference.

Helene Whittaker is Professor of Classical Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Gothenburg. Her research is mainly concerned with the Greek Bronze Age, but she has also published within various areas of Greek and Roman history, philosophy, religion, and literature. Her latest book is Religion and Society in Middle Bronze Age Greece (CUP, 2014).

Graham Wrightson is Assistant Professor of History at South Dakota State University. His research focuses primarily on Macedonian military history. He gained his PhD at the University of Calgary, Canada. He has published a number of articles and papers on Macedonian warfare and is a co-editor of Greece, Macedon and Persia: Studies in the Social, Political and Military Consequences of Conquest Societies (Oxbow, 2015) and The Many Faces of War in the Ancient World (Cambridge Scholars, 2015). He is also working on a textbook for Western Civilization 1 tentatively entitled Becoming Civilized (Cognella, 2015).

"Overall, this volume on ancient warfare contains a healthy mix, not only of different aspects of ancient warfare, but a mix of new research, different perspectives. Most importantly, it contains a blend of under-researched and obscure topics that, given their importance to ancient warfare research, should have been treated much earlier than 2015. Perhaps surprisingly, there has been a continuous rise in edited volumes on ancient warfare in the past few years, but one would be wrong in expecting that the present volume might get lost in this sea of ancient warfare volumes. Ancient Warfare: Introducing Current Research offers a refreshing and innovative perspective on an already very popular field of study, and perhaps it is fitting that the volume has appeared now when there are others contesting for the top spot in ancient warfare. Seeing that this is the first volume, we should look forward to future ones."

Carlos Villafane University of Liverpool Bryn Mawr Classical Review 02.12.2016

"Due to the varied nature of the content presented in this volume, there is bound to be something for almost anyone interested in ancient warfare within its pages. This is a collection of quality works that will force many of us to see aspects of ancient conflict in new ways, introduce us to unfamiliar areas, and, in some places, challenge currently accepted ideas. This volume should find a place on the bookshelf of academics, students, and laypersons alike. I am very much looking forward to volume 2."

Christopher Matthew Australian Catholic University American Journal of Archaeology, 121:1 (2017)

"What this book succeeds in most is the presentation of innovative research within the field of ancient military history. With topics ranging from the 'killing' of iron age swords (M. Lloyd), to ancient military medicine (J. Laskaris), via modern attempts to reconstruct catapults (A. Schofield), it becomes clear how widespread the interests of the contributors are, and each paper deals in some way with ongoing controversies within the respective fields."

Owen Rees Ancient Warfare, 10: 3 (2016)

"Combining archaeology, war studies, and social history, this volume would be a very useful addition to any library on warfare and provides an invaluable update on the latest research with coverage of oft-neglected topics which give a deeper insight into the full impact of warfare in the ancient world. […] Highly recommended and Volume II is eagerly awaited."

Mark Cartwright Ancient History Encyclopedia, August 2015

Adam Anders

Borja Antela-Bernárdez

Nick Barley

Anna Busetto

Hannah Cornwell

Susan Deacy

Jeffrey Emanuel

Elena Franchi

Julie Laskaris

Konstantinos Lentakis

Matthew Lloyd

Fiona McHardy

Stephen O'Connor

Alberto Pérez-Rubio

Giorgia Proietti

Aimée Schofield

Helene Whittaker

Matteo Zaccarini

Buy This Book

ISBN: 1-4438-7694-1

ISBN13: 978-1-4438-7694-0

Release Date: 10th July 2015

Pages: 375

Price: £52.99

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