Military Review English Edition January-February 2015 | Page 142

and weapons serve merely as a backdrop to explain the former through a wide survey of military history, mostly of the Western tradition. The reader, particularly if a student of military history, must keep this in mind while reading, as the historical assertions can be general and somewhat anecdotal. From the onset, the author is clearly a physics professor, ostensibly a fine one, but no historian. Despite allowing for easier understanding of difficult scientific concepts, the folksy and conversational language sets an unauthoritative tone. Too often, he reaches out to less-than-august academic sources on the web such as Wikipedia, How Stuff Works, and About.com. When The Physics of War hits on an interesting, important, and well-explained topic, the book soars. For instance, the author’s explanation on the application of rifling and ballistics is fascinating. The pieces devoted to the development of gunnery would make any artilleryman proud. Other sections on the long bow, radar, and atomic bomb may not be ground breaking or revelatory, but are nevertheless insightful. If anything, the reader gains confidence in finding confirmation in what he or she already knows about the world. Despite all that is right with it, the work is often so broad in its treatment of war’s history, from chariot to drone, that it often suffers from a lack of focus. The few gems in it are sparsely separated by muddled, easily contestable topics that fall flat. The author claims outright that the Romans had disdain for science. The Roman arches and aqueducts that function after thousands of years may silently confute such an assertion. Also, he claims that few advances in science occurred