Publisher's Synopsis
"Hurray, boys, we've got them!" General Custer reportedly told his troops before the Battle of Little Bighorn. As this shrewd, controversial book shows, military disaster comes in many forms, except, in hindsight, the unexpected. Here leading military historian Saul David surveys the six major mistakes that generals have often made through history. His book both vividly describes some of the worst military blunders perpetrated over the last two thousand years and analyzes the psychological and tactical factors at play to show why these disasters occurred. Some of the disastrous historical campaigns include Custer's Last Stand, Hitler at the Siege of Stalingrad, the Second Crusade, the Battle of Antietam, the Somme Offensive, and the Fall of Singapore. The new edition is also updated to take in the added blunders that have occurred in the last decade: Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya.
