Last Stand!: Famous Battles Against All Odds - Hardcover

Perrett, Bryan

3.78

140 ratings by Goodreads

9780785816805: Last Stand!: Famous Battles Against All Odds

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0785816801 ISBN 13: 9780785816805

Publisher: Castle, 2003

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Custer's wasn't the only one! A "last stand" remains one of the most compelling wartime scenarios, where outnumbered warriors fight on, hoping to defy the odds and win the day. This best-selling collection gathers 13 examples of such battles, which often influence entire campaigns. Alongside less well-known cases, appear some of the most unforgettable campaigns: Napoleon at Waterloo, the Alamo, Little Big Horn, Rorke's Drift, and Arnhem Bridge. "...part of the...Cassell Military Classics series...hair-raising stories of military skirmishes throughout history."--Library Journal.

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About the Author:

Bryan Perrett left the army as a successful career officer to take up the pen as a full-time writer. Able to write to any brief (he was captioning picture-strips for schoolgirl comics at one point), he found his metier as a military historian and writer of good, fast, episodic, narrative popular histories. His many books, all founded on meticulous research from primary sources, find a wide popular readership. He is the bestselling author in the bestselling Cassell Military Classics series

Review:

This book contains thirteen brief chapters on some of the bloodiest battles in military history, and although the emphasis is clearly on Britain, there is also a good sampling of U.S. battles as well. I'm a little disappointed that no mention of Civil War battles was included, as there are plenty of examples of "last stands" (Fort Pillow, Sailor's Creek, Vicksburg, Nashville) that could easily fill a book. Also the editing (at least in the Castle edition I own) was a little sloppy in places. There was little about the Alamo, Custer's Last Stand, or Wake Island in this book that I didn't already know, but the chapters on Napoleon's Old Guard at Waterloo, the "demon" Legionnaires at Camerone, Rorke's Drift, and Arnhem Bridge were very gripping and informative. The maps in each chapter are outstanding and very helpful in giving the reader a visual picture of the battlefields. Much of the book focuses on World War Two battles while only one chapter describes World War One "last stands". So don't expect too much from a book this short. If you're looking for a good introduction to some of Great Britain's and the United States' hardest fought battles, this is a great place to begin. --David Kirk

This book is a series of short essays on famous last ditch battles fought through out history from Waterloo in 1815 through Imjin in Korea in 1952. While it does not cover every great last stand, by no means even a large number of them, it is still a very worthwhile book. It covers about 10 such battles all over the world during this time period, and is written in a very easy to read format. The stories will keep you on the edge of your seat the whole time, and you will come away from it with a great deal of knowledge. Many of the stories are complete enough to shed light on a single individual involved, not just the whole unit involved. If you like the underdog, or a fight against all odds, this book is for you. --By Robert Walters -

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