Famous battles and how they shaped the modern world, 1588-1843: from the Armada to Stalingrad

摘要

For those with little or no military experience, the intensity-indeed the courage-fear and horror endured in battle, whether fought within or between states, can only be vicariously grasped through the medium of historical explanation or literary and artistic exposition. Or, indeed, filmic experience, such as the epic struggle at Rorke's Drift in Zulu (a staple offering on Christmas television), a film which was received in total silence when it was released in 1964, with the audience moved, it seems, by a vision of British military success against overwhelming odds. There is, too, the magnificent eight-hour Russian version of Tolstoy's War and Peace (1967), in which the battle of Borodino alone lasted some 20 graphically portrayed minutes, with the Yugoslav army providing a cast of thousands for the battle scenes.