The Peloponnesian War

Donald Kagan

2003

Kagan's single-volume masterpiece covering the entire war between Athens and Sparta.

Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West

Tom Holland

2005

Holland's gripping narrative of the Persian invasions of Greece, from Marathon to Salamis, and how a tiny Greek coalition stopped the mightiest empire on earth.

Gates of Fire

Steven Pressfield

1998

A vivid fictional account of the 300 Spartans who held the pass at Thermopylae. Widely regarded as the finest military historical novel ever written.

The Fall of Carthage: The Punic Wars 265-146BC

Adrian Goldsworthy

2000

Definitive modern account of all three Punic Wars, from Hannibal's crossing of the Alps to the final destruction of Carthage.

Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic

Tom Holland

2003

Gripping narrative of Rome's transformation from republic to empire, from Sulla's march on Rome to Julius Caesar's assassination.

The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians

Peter Heather

2006

Revisionist history arguing that the fall of Rome was caused primarily by external military pressure from the Huns and Goths.

The Ghosts of Cannae: Hannibal and the Darkest Hour of the Roman Republic

Robert L. O'Connell

2010

Account of Hannibal's invasion of Italy and the catastrophic Roman defeat at Cannae, the tactical masterpiece that still influences military thought.

Thermopylae: The Battle That Changed the World

Paul Cartledge

2006

Scholarly account of the Battle of Thermopylae by a leading classicist, examining the historical reality behind the Spartan stand and its extraordinary afterlife in Western culture.

Ancient warfare

John Carman

1999

The Art of War

孙武

1900

The Art of War is an ancient Chinese military treatise dating from the Late Spring and Autumn Period. The work, which is attributed to the ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu

Discovering famous battles -- ancient warfare

Jeff Fletcher

1974

Bible

Bible

1200

A Christian Bible is a set of books divided into the Old and New Testament that a Christian denomination has, at some point in their past or present, regarded as divinely inspired scripture.

Art of Ancient Warfare

Josho Brouwers

2016

The Time Machine

H. G. Wells

1895

The Time Traveller, a dreamer obsessed with traveling through time, builds himself a time machine and, much to his surprise, travels over 800,000 years into the future. He lands in the year 802701: th...

Ancient Warfare

Harry Sidebottom

2005

"This book explores the ways in which ancient society thought about conflict. Many aspects of ancient warfare are examined from philosophy to the technical skills needed to fight"--Provided by publish...

The Prince

Niccolò Machiavelli

1515

The Prince (Italian: Il Principe [il ˈprintʃipe]; Latin: De Principatibus) is a 16th-century political treatise written by Italian diplomat and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli as an instruction...

The histories

Polybius

1542

Greek with facing English translation

Ancient Rome

Christopher S. Mackay

2005

Pharsalia

Lucan

1486

"In this edition Professor Fantham offers the first full-scale commentary on the neglected second book of Lucan's epic poem on the war between Caesar and Pompey: De bello civili. Book II presents all ...

Discourses on Livy

Niccolò Machiavelli

1531

<p>A very different work from his well-known <i><a href="https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/niccolo-machiavelli/the-prince/w-k-marriott">The Prince</a></i>, and posthumously published a year prior to i...