New book reveals the monks who invented modern warfare and the darker side of one of

Walk into a bookshop and you can hardly move for books titled A History of the World in X number of drinks, or heroes, or fish… This one is Terry Deary’s second addition to the canon.

Spanning 2,443 years, Deary traverses conflicts involving the Greeks, the Persians, the Romans, Charlemagne and Genghis Khan. He also addresses the Crusades, Protestants versus Catholics, the many scraps between the British and French, and the catastrophic loss of life that occurred in the 20th century.

Deary celebrates the bravery of the Spartans, the strategic mind of Napoleon, the medical innovations of Florence Nightingale, and the unnecessary, but gloriously immortalised, destruction of that charging Light Brigade.

But opposed to every instance of glory is the very real horror of war. Tales abound of men mown down by cavalry, longbows and machine guns. Meanwhile, stories of wives being forced to eat their husbands’ spit-roasted flesh – and the vanquished having their flesh being nipped off with red-hot pincers – show that savagery has never been reserved for the battlefield alone. 

Hero?: Churchill strongly considered the use of poisonous gas when fighting to expand Britain’s colonies

Equally chilling are Deary’s examples of commonly lauded heroes behaving in far from heroic ways. Following the deadly efficiency of chemical warfare during the First World War, one optimistic colonist declared, ‘I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes.’ The man in question didn’t need to use deadly ones, just those that he thought would ‘spread a lively terror’. The man in question was Winston Churchill.

Deary is also incredibly effective in showing how war brought on technological advancement like nothing else. Gunpowder was invented by Chinese monks hoping to discover the elixir of life. 

A History of The World in Ten Wars is available now from the Mail Bookshop

While barbed wire, patented following the American Civil War, was the real defensive hero of the First World War. History has seen the move from spears to lances, lances to longbows, and bows to machine guns.

King James I deployed the first (unsuccessful) submarine and felt sure the device could never function – you have to wonder what he or the Spartans might think of the unmanned bombers of modern warfare.

The overall effect of this fantastically written book is to show how the cogs of war turn, drawing humanity onwards to the next great conflict – culminating in the generational desolation of the world wars. Deary doesn’t shy away from how little we learn, or how each conflict lays the foundation for the next. Despite its lightness of style, this book will leave a long-lasting impression.