"History of the WSS Book recomendations." Topic

I'm looking for any recommendations currently available books that cover the war and politics in Europe. Esp ones recently published and with plenty of good maps.
regards
David

I have Falkners great and glorious days. It only deals with the campaigns of Marlborough. And does tell a little about the abhalo-Dutch politics and alliance making. But it's 60% war!

Giving details on 5 of Marlboroughs battles and a short introduction to his life and alø the stuff leading up to Blenheim in 218 pages.

Of course, Churchiil"s "Marborough, His Life and Times" covers all these subjects in detail. While some criticize it for being too pro-Marlborough, and Churchill readily admitted that he was biased toward his ancestor, it still is a great, detailed description of the war in all its aspects, written in Churchill's excellent style and is one of the great biographies written in the English language in the 20th Century.

Marlborough's Other Army by Nicholas Dorrell focuses on Spain. The writing is rather disjointed but there are lots of maps and OBs. Very much the British point of view.

If you are just starting out, then Falkner's The War of the Spanish Succession is ideal. Generally, there are a fair number of books available on Marlborough's campaigns, but it is harder to find decent information on the other campaigns. The Churchill biography does provide a lot of information on the non-Marlborough campaigns, but I would start with Falkner. Whatever you do, don't buy the Partizan Press book on Malplaquet.

A great help thank you. I'm off to chase down a copy of Falkner to start me off. And thanks for the Malplaquet tip!

Whatever you do, don't buy the Partizan Press book on Malplaquet.

Haven't had a look at the Partizan Press book; what's the problem with it?

I'm wondering that too.

I have generally found with Caliver/Partizan Press books that, if the author can write and self-edit (like Dr Summerfield), then the books are at least ok. Clearly, however, there is little money in the budget for editing. So, when the author really needs a good editor, the results can be diabolical. The Malplaquet title was the worst that I have seen. I can live with grammatical and typographical errors if the book is otherwise worthwhile, but Malplaquet was just horrible in all respects. The ultimate absurdity was that they managed to print some of the editor's comments into the text. And they weren't even good comments!

Falkners book is good. Dry but good. Except that it has no maps and so it quickly becomes a long list of names, places and dates with no map to place it against.
Chandlers book "The Art of Warfare in the Age of Marlborough" is one I would highly recommend. As I would Trevalyns three volume work (second hand copy on the Oxfam website I noticed the other day).