More than one hundred fifty distinguished military historians, biographers, and journalists contributed nearly six hundred articles to The Reader's Companion to Military History. The result is an extraordinary chronicle of warfare that combines compelling historical narrative with the best of contemporary scholarship.

Filled with surprising anecdotes, little-known facts, and rare illustrations, the volume provides essential information on major events and battles, commanders, theorists, weaponry and technology, and strategy and tactics. Especially distinctive is the broad spectrum of its thematic articles.

Topics include courage, discipline, the effects of weather on warfare, strategy, the role of propaganda, espionage, the use of animals in war, the evolution of uniforms, disposal of the dead, mutiny, psychological warfare, and morale.

The Readers's Companion is the first major reference work on military history to present a global perspective. No less comprehensive is its chronological scope, which ranges from the origins of warfare itself to the Persian Wars of 490 B.C. to ethnic cleansing, gays in the military, and the revelations of Robert McNamara.