Brent Nosworthy's "Anatomy of Victory"?

huevans07 · Post by **huevans07** » Sun Jun 08, 2008 3:36 pm

Interested in what the people on this forum think of the above book. I've got as far as Frederick's reforms and am intrigued by the author's comments about the differences in infantry and cavalry training, discipline and tactics between the WSS and WAS eras.

Anyone care to comment?

j1mwallace · Post by **j1mwallace** » Sun Jun 08, 2008 9:08 pm

I thought that this was a superb, highly informative book. Next time someone asks why it takes a full turn to about face your troops you can show him why they don't just turn around. The chapters on manouevre made the book worth it on their own.
Excellent book.

Bluebear · Post by **Bluebear** » Sun Jun 08, 2008 11:55 pm

I read it when it was first published (early 90s as I recall) and I was quite impressed with it . . . which means that I really should re-read it now that I'm actually interested in the period covered.

-- Jeff

hwiccee · Post by **hwiccee** » Mon Jun 09, 2008 10:55 am

It is an excellent book for it's time but a bit dated now. To be fair this is also the view of Mr Nosworthy as he is working on an updated version now. In brief the problem is that it reflects the knowledge of the period in the English speaking world at the time it was written. But since then new research and access to non English works has changed the picture we have.

As with the others who have commented it has been a while since I read this book. So I can't really comment on what he has to say about the the tactical changes form the WSS to thw WAS. Perhaps you could summarise what he says?