The Face of Battle

John Keegan's account of three battles — Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme — from the perspective of the ordinary soldiers who fought them, founding the genre of experiential military history.

Methodological revolution in military history: instead of studying battles from commanders' perspectives (maps, orders, decisions), Keegan asks what it was actually like to stand in the front rank at Agincourt, to hold the line at Waterloo, to go over the top on the Somme. The physical experience of battle: fear, noise, exhaustion, the mechanics of killing. A model for how military history should be written.