Vegetius' late Roman text became a well-known and highly respected 'classic' in the Middle Ages, transformed by its readers into the authority on the waging of war. Christopher Allmand analyses the medieval afterlife of the De Re Militari, tracing the growing interest in the text from the Carolingian world to the late Middle Ages, suggesting how the written word may have influenced the development of military practice in that period. While emphasising that success depended on a commander's ability to outwit the enemy with a carefully selected, well-trained and disciplined army, the De Re Militari inspired other unexpected developments, such as that of the 'national' army, and helped create a context in which the role of the soldier assumed greater social and political importance. Allmand explores the significance of the text and the changes it brought for those who accepted the implications of its central messages.

The period 1603-1645 witnessed the publication of more than ninety books, manuals, and broadsheets dedicated to educating Englishmen in the military arts. Written with the intention of creating the a oecomplete soldiera, this didactic literature provided gentlemen with the requisite knowledge to engage in infantry, cavalry, and siege warfare. Drawing on military history and book history, this is the first detailed study of the impact of military books on military practice in Jacobean and Caroline England. Putting military books firmly in the hands of soldiers, this work examines the circles that purchased and debated new titles, the veterans who authored them, and their influence on military thought and training in the years leading up to the English Civil War.

The Eighty Years War (1567-1659) has been the subject of important monographs but the high command of the Army of Flanders, which played a decisive role in the making of Spanish strategy and was in charge of its tactics, has eluded detailed scrutiny. This work, the first study of an early modern officer corps, examines the culture, class structure, and combat effectiveness of the largest army of its day. Combining approaches and insights from social, cultural and military history, it traces the evolution of the leading cadres of the legendary tercios in relation to major trends such as aristocratization and military modernization while revising recent perspectives on Spain’s war against the Dutch and the French in the Low Countries.