War in an Age of Revolution 1775-1815 by Roger Chickering and Stig Főrster, (eds.)

(Cambridge University Press), 2010

422pp., £45 hard, ISBN 0-978-521-89996-3

Modern warfare really began in the series of wars that convulsed Europe and North America between 1775 and 1815: the War of American Independence, the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars and the War of 1812.  This volume of essays seeks to extent to which warfare extended practices already common earlier in the eighteenth century or introduce fundamentally different forms of warfare.  The twenty essays in the volume are divided into three sections: perspectives on a military history of the revolutionary era, the growing dimensions of battle and civil institutions and the growing scope of war.  They range widely thematically and geographically from discussion of the global nature of war, to partisans, naval warfare and the role of the citizen army.  This is an extremely valuable book for teachers and students who want to understand the changing nature of warfare and the historiographical problems this poses.