Gabriele EspositoBesprekingen

Gabriele Esposito never does less-than-workmanlike writing for Osprey, and there is nothing wrong with this booklet, which is stuffed with a lot of information and a lot of fine imagery. What is your complaint then? One, it seems to be that a lot of the interstitial art really needed better citations, keeping in mind the limits of what you can do with a 48-page booklet. Two, while it's nice that there is something of a bibliography with this work, it leans too heavily on Osprey's own publications. If you're looking for a meatier overview, try "The Italian Wars 1494-1559" by Shaw & Mallett (Routledge, 2018).½

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Timely Take-Aways for Life-Long Learners

Explore three new works of nonfiction focusing on the Viking experience.

The Viking Heart: How Scandinavians Conquered the World
Arthur Herman, August 2021, Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Themes: history, Vikings, Europe, Scandinavia, expeditions
From their role as foreign invaders to their contributions as settlers and global citizens, Herman effectively engages readers in the history of the Vikings as they explored the world seeking both conquest and a better life for their families.

The Last Viking: The True Story of King Harald Hardrada
Don Hollway
September 2021, Osprey/Macmillan
Themes: history, Vikings, medieval, military, biography
This fast-paced work of nonfiction narrative weaves together a wide range of historical accounts and legends to tell the true story of King Harald Hardrada of Norway. This larger than life Viking warrior traversed the world seeking vengeance, passion, and power.

Armies of the Vikings, AD 793-1066: History, Organization & Equipment
Gabriele Esposito, October 2021, Pen & Sword Military
Themes: history, Vikings, Europe, military
Exploring the military history (AD 793-1066) of the Vikings, this accessible work of nonfiction examines their global impact including key campaigns, battles, and warriors. Of particular note is the use of high quality color photographs of re-enactors and emphasis on strategy, tactics, weapons, armor, and clothing.

Let’s explore seven timely take-aways for life-long learners:

1. The significant contributions of Vikings and their Scandinavian descendants are often overlooked in favor of a narrative focusing on violence and domination.
2. While sometimes associated with white supremacy and neo-Nazi groups, DNA investigations have found that the Norsemen of the Viking era never formed a single race or national identity. Instead they can be defined by their shared cultural and spiritual way of life that transcends physical traits and specific locations.
3. While many other cultures placed emphasis on gender, birthright and status, the Vikings stressed leadership, loyalty, and courage in battle. As a result, diversity was the norm giving women and individuals not native to Norway the opportunity to excel.
4. Human-trafficking was common among Viking raiding parties contributing to their wealth. Slaves were a significant commodity in the domestic economy.
5. The term Viking didn’t become popularized until the nineteenth century.
6. King Harald Hardrada of Norway was a Viking warrior who took center stage near the end of the Viking era.
7. It’s often difficult to separate the fact from the fantasy when studying the Viking era. Historians must synthesize memoir, historical accounts, oral history, and Norse sagas to create an accurate narrative.

Whether helping educators keep up-to-date in their subject-areas, promoting student reading in the content-areas, or simply encouraging nonfiction leisure reading, teacher librarians need to be aware of the best new titles across the curriculum and how to activate life-long learning. - Annette Lamb

I am fairly familiar with Osprey Publishing; they publish several illustrated 'army' books that are a huge help for table top strategy gamers who like to assemble and paint their own models (so I have several books from this publisher). Sadly the kindle version of this book jumbles the illustration layouts making it difficult to fully enjoy them. This seems to be a common problem with preview mobi files; the pdf version looks fine.

The book itself breaks down each of the factors that contributed to the war. Each section picks up a specific theme, such as who the players were (profiles of peoples and their leaders), how each side was organized, what weapons and equipment were utilized and how the war itself was prosecuted. Over all, each section was clear and concise. The author doesn't try to explore the causes of the war very deeply, it does come across as something of a colonial apologetic. Even without looking at what motivated the war, you can infer a lot just from how everybody reacted to what was happening and the book does a good job laying that out. I was a little surprised by the lack of support (even some antipathy) from the British Crown for the New England Puritans. In the end, I think it provides an excellent foundation to exploring how the war influenced the evolution of the English colonies and perhaps why New England became the Revolutionary power keg by which England lost control of her colonies.

I was given this free advance reader copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
#KingPhilipsWar167576 #NetGalley

Generally I don't esteem titles in Osprey's old bread and butter series that highly, but Esposito does such a good job of giving you a concise overview of the time and conflict in question that it seems lame of me not to. If nothing else, I'm reminded of how the period of European history from 1814 to 1848 is something I probably could stand to learn more about. Oh yeah, the art is quite nice too.

Another feeding of my penchant for obscure military conflicts. The situation started with the Chincha Islands War of 1864-1865, even more obscure; a Spanish fleet, on what was ostensibly a “goodwill visit”, demanded an apology from Peru over the murder of a Spanish citizen. Peru insisted it was an internal matter; the Spanish responded by seizing the offshore Chincha Islands, whose guano exports made up 40% of Peruvian revenue. Other South American countries – Ecuador, Bolivia, and Chile – declared war on Spain in solidarity with Peru. It was a stalemate; the Spanish didn’t have enough troops to invade, settled for blockades and bombardments, and eventually gave up and continued on their “goodwill” tour. However, the ease with which a relatively small Spanish squadron had been able to raise havoc inspired the South American countries – especially Chile, who had lost almost her entire merchant fleet when the Spanish bombarded Valparaiso – to increase their navies.

Forward to 1879. Chile had a more or less democratic government – by South American standards, at least – while both Peru and Bolivia were military dictatorships. (Bolivia had a particular brutal one under General Hilarión Daza Groselle). The southernmost province of Peru – Tarapacá – and the coastal province of Bolivia – Antofagasta – were mostly occupied by Chileans, who were busy mining mineral resources – mostly nitrates – in the Atacama Desert. Chile and Bolivia had signed a treaty defining the border and guaranteeing that Bolivia would not raise taxes on Chilean companies for 25 years. However, Bolivia and Peru had also signed a secret mutual defense treaty aimed at Chile. In 1878 Bolivia – in violation of the tax treaty with Chile – raised taxes on nitrate extraction by ten cents. The mining companies refused to pay, Bolivia threatened seizure, Chile landed a force in Antofagasta to defend the mines, Bolivia invoked the secret treaty with Peru, and Chile was at war with Peru and Bolivia.

Peru and Bolivia must have counted on the Atacama Desert as defense; it was impassable to land-based military forces. Naval actions dominated the early part of the war, with the Chileans hunting down the British-made Peruvian turret ship Huáscar. The Huáscar was able to run rampant for a while, bombarding Chilean positions and capturing Chilean merchant ships; after a long and bitter battle she was captured at the battle of Angamos and incorporated into the Chilean navy (she’s still on display as a museum ship, one of the few from the early ironclad era).Once free of the threat from Huáscar, Chile was able to use her superior navy to outflank the Peruvian and Bolivian forces, capturing Lima in 1881. The war dragged on for two more years as Peruvian guerillas retreated to the Andes, but eventually Tarapacá and Antofagasta were ceded to Chile (Chile agreed to build a railroad from La Paz to Antofagasta, and Bolivia was allowed free transit through the territory).

Like most Osprey books, this is primarily intended for military miniature modelers, with full color plates illustrating uniforms of the various armies (the Bolivian grenadier is particularly impressive). However, the coverage of the outbreak of the war, campaigns, and battles is also well done. Lots of illustrations and maps, and a bibliography. Recommended if you are in to this sort of thing. To this day, things are a little tense between Bolivia and Chile; they do not have diplomatic relations beyond the consular level.½

Survey of Japan's armies (and, to a certain extent, the navies) in the period immediately after Japan's opening, and during two internal crises/rebellions of the 1868-1877 period, events which really don't get a great deal of attention. One curiousity here was a digression on the Ainu, the aboriginal natives of Japan. Like many MAA titles, quite specialized, but as I say, I found this to be informative on a period of time not generally covered in the West.

I had somewhat mixed views on this volume. The illustrations are all right, but nothing particularly spectacular. The information is rather dense, and I didn't find the text terribly gripping. Rather dry, really. Some Men-at-Arms entries are better than others in presenting their information. This, alas, isn't one of them.½

The title pretty much sums it up; the MAA series as a whole is very focused in its titles, so if you're not interested in this era (or like me don't have the whole MAA set) you might not be interested.½

A very interesting book that grapples with the very confusing nature of the first of the three major Spanish civil wars that went under the name "Carlist." The book helps itself by clearly and succinctly spelling out the background to the war, and then, as this series does, describes the arms and equipment of both sides. One thing that was a bit different about this book is that the illustrator has some very good pages showing soldiers in costume interacting with each other. I thought the illustrations in this volume were some of the best the series has had in some issues. The other illustrations (meaning the ones not done by Rava) were well-chosen. Overall, as I say, one of the better of the recent MAA series, which has been slowing down a bit.

Good as being one of the few books in English on this war. I have been interested in this war ever since I read Woman on Horseback, a biography of Paraguayan president Francisco Lopez's Irish consort. The author does his bet to be objective about a war which till evokes intense emotions, especially in Paraguay, in which the Paraguayan president created a quite formidable amry and took on all his neighbors-- in fairness, initially he was intervening in a Uruguayan civil war and (according to another book, not this one) had some reason to think that the rival of Argentine president Sarmiento could prevent Argentina from intervening effectively. Even so, he knew he was taking on Brazil which had vastly greater resources and better opportunities for getting military supplies from Europe.According to this book, e hoped the Spanish population of Brazil's western province would join him (as a long revolt had just been suppressed there) but that again failed to happen. i was struck by how some of the strategy in this was resembled that of te just-concluded US Civil War. In particular Brazilian Marshal Caxias's Pykysry maneuver reminds me strongly of Grant's march around Vicksburg, while the battle of Cuyuti reminds me of Fredericksburg, though in that case it may be simply a matter of the inevitable result of trying to storm a strongly defended position. As usual with Osprey this book has a survey of the war (the most useful part for me) and pictures of soldiers with discussion of their uniforms (intended for hobbyists painting miniatures). That does not concern me, but other reviewers complained it showed too many dress uniforms and not enough field uniforms, which woud ave been what most soldiers would have worn if they had any uniforms at all --many did not in the later stages of the war, especially Paraguayans who are shown wearing a kind of traditional native kilt.

The War of the Triple Alliance was a nasty affair among four nations in South America: Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. Paraguay's crazy president and dictator Francisco Solano López who inherited the presidency from his father. Fearing the growing future strength of his neighboring countries, he kicked off a war against them all. As Paraguay is situated in a forsaken spot, it took the others quite some time to create, move and sustain effective armies there. Like the South in the American Civil War, López managed to inflict defeats against superior forces early in the war until he had fully exhausted the resources and the goodwill of his people. Paraguay suffered terribly for the senseless war, much more than the Confederacy. Any Southerner complaining about Sherman's march through Georgia might be well advised to have a look at what happened to Paraguay.

This Osprey MAA title offers an all too short introduction to the topic. It is simply not possible to give adequate coverage toa 6 year war of 4 nations in 48 pages. Osprey should have published it either as two MAA or a Campaign title(s). With fewer than 4 pages per army, the author can only list the basics of each army. The short text about the war also suffers from concatenation by squeezing multiple facts into single sentences. The maps included lack scales and are sometimes quite confusing. The most recent non-English publication listed in the bibliography dates from 1990. There must have been more recent publications produced for the ongoing bicentennial. The highlight of the title are the very vivid paintings by Giuseppe Rava. Get the booklet for the illustrations and because there isn't much else readily available in English.