This is a fantastic book for the history buff or for the person that is just wanting to know the importance of battles in history and how they may have shape the course of time. The author gives short details that are through and concise of the main players of each battle, the how’s and why’s and goes into the terrain when necessary. This was how many armies were defeated by a smaller force because the leader of the smaller force was able to use the land as another defensive tool and weather it would be high ground, or being able to push the opposing army into water these would all come into play. All of these are explained and done so in a way that makes for each battle to give you the reader enough information and then to move on to the next story. The one battle that really intrigue me was the battle of Solferino-SAN Martino 24 June 1859, it was this battle that Henri Dunant a Swiss businessman who arrived in the aftermath of the battle and seeing all of the thousands of wounded soldiers lying untended on the field. He put into action a plan and four years later in Geneva on August 22, 1864 the Red Cross was formed. It should be noted that after the battle he did stay and organized the villages around to help him treat the wounded men. It is stories like these that you will find in this book the small little bits of history that you don’t read about. This is an excellent book and very much worth the read.