Kategoria BISAC: History >> Military - Medieval

Arguably the greatest military commander in the history of the samurai, Toyotomi Hideyoshi rose from the ranks of the peasantry to rule over all Japan. A student of the great unifier Oda Nobunaga, Hideyoshi would later avenge the murder of his master at the battle of Yamazaki.

After consolidating his position, Hideyoshi went on the offensive, conquering the southern island of Kyushu in 1587 and defeating the Hojo in 1590. By 1591, he had accomplished the reunification of Japan. This book looks at the complete story of Hideyoshi's military accomplishments, from his days as a tactical...

Beginning in 1095 and culminating four bloody years later, the First Crusade represented a new kind of warfare: holy,...

When the First Crusade ended with the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, jubilant crusaders returned home to Europe bringing with them stories, sacred relics, and other memorabilia, including banners, jewelry, and weapons. In the ensuing decades, the memory of the crusaders' bravery and pious sacrifice was invoked widely among the noble families of western Christendom. Popes preaching future crusades would count on these very same families for financing, leadership, and for the willing warriors who would lay down their lives on the battlefield. Despite the great risks and financial hardships...

Facing off against Byzantines, Arabs, Vikings, Turks, Mongols, and Russians, this steppe culture dominated Black Sea and Caucasus trade during Medieval times.

The Bulgars were a Turkic people who established a state north of the Black Sea, and who showed similarities with the Alans and Sarmatians. In the late 500s and early 600s AD their state fragmented under pressure from the Khazars; one group moved south into what became Bulgaria, but the rest moved north during the 7th and 8th centuries to the basin of the Volga river. There they remained under Khazar domination until the Khazar...

There is a vigorous debate on the exact beginnings of the Crusades, as well as a growing conviction that some practices of crusading may have been in existence, at least in part, long before they were identified as such. The Prehistory of the Crusades explores how the Crusades came to be seen as the use of aggressive warfare to Christianise pagan lands and peoples. Reynolds focuses on the Baltic, or Northern, Crusades, an aspect of the Crusades that has been little documented, thus bringing a new perspective to their historical and ideological origins.

Baltic Crusades were...

Armies of Castile and Aragon depicts the fighting men whose skill and tactical flexibility made Spain into a world power at the close of the Middle Ages, carving out empires from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean. Much has been written of the men who fought in the Hundred Years' War between England and France, and the Wars of the Roses. But meanwhile, on the Iberian peninsula, the foundations of Spain's military 'Golden Age' were being laid as the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon under the Trastamara dynasty grew in power, ambition and success.

This book features spectacular...

In Warfare and the Miraculous in the Chronicles of the First Crusade, Elizabeth Lapina examines a variety of these chronicles, written both by participants in the crusade and by those who stayed behind. Her goal is to understand the enterprise from the perspective of its contemporaries and near contemporaries. Lapina analyzes the diversity of ways in which the chroniclers tried to justify the First Crusade as a "holy war," where physical violence could be not just sinless, but salvific.

The book focuses on accounts of miracles reported to have happened in the course of the...

The next section describes the unfolding of...

The Mongol Empire was the mightiest land empire the world has ever seen. At its height, it was twice the size of its Roman equivalent. For a remarkable century and a half, it commanded a population of 100 million people, while the rule of Chinggis (Genghis) Khan marched undefeated from the Pacific Ocean to the Caspian Sea.

In this highly readable latest addition to I.B.Tauris's popular Short History series, George Lane argues that the Mongols were not only subjugators who swept all before them, but one of the great organizing forces of world history. His book traces the rise...

It is probably a fact of history that, when a small country stands as an adjunct of a big, powerful country, the collective unconscious or psyche of that small country probably has the characteristics of an inferiority complex. In terms of the Welsh, the defeat and demise of both Prince Llewelyn and Owain Glyndwr have probably given them the role of victim or glory in defeat.

Regarding military prowess, it has been perceived that the Celts have sometimes been used as cannon fodder, coming from small impoverished countries while the British Army is run primarily by the English...