‘Every age has its own kind of war.’ – Clausewitz, On War
Raids, invasions and sieges; trench battles, naval encounters and aerial dogfights; civil wars, guerrilla wars, trade wars and nuclear wars; wars of succession, religion and independence – wars have been fought in all kinds of ways and for all kinds of reasons.
From the ancient world to the invasion of Ukraine, from the Hundred Years’ War to the Six Day War, from the Wars of the Roses to the Opium Wars, across over 1000 pages The Encyclopedia of Warfare presents the reader with more than 5000 entries – arranged chronologically – on wars, campaigns, empires, rebellions and counter-insurgencies.
From battles fought with spears to the latest drone technology, The Encyclopedia of Warfare features an immense range of conflict. Each war narrative, where appropriate, includes descriptions of its campaigns, battles and sieges. All this is easily accessed via an extensive index.
Featuring over 610 full colour maps created specifically for this volume and 100 photographs in two plate sections, The Encyclopedia of Warfare is written in a style accessible to both the student and the general enthusiast, and reflects the latest thinking among military historians. The Encyclopedia of Warfare is an authoritative compendium of almost five millennia of conflict.

Dennis E. Showalter was a professor of history at Colorado College who specialized in German military history. He was President of the American Society for Military History from 1997 to 2001. He was the winner of the 1992 Birdsall Prize, the 2005 Samuel Eliot Morison Prize and the 2018 Pritzker Literature Award. He also served as a consultant for the Japanese Ministry of Defense, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, the United States Training and Doctrine Command, and the DOD Office of Net Assessment. He died in 2019.