New Approaches to the Military History of the English Civil War

In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in the military history of the English Civil War and its associated conflicts in Ireland and Scotland. Historians are increasingly paying attention to the ‘actualities of war' (to use Sir Basil Liddell Hart's phrase) during these conflicts, and this has given rise to an accompanying recognition that the better-studied political, social and religious developments of the mid-17th century cannot be divorced from military events; this is a timely evaluation of a selection of distinct, yet interrelated, military aspects of the civil war. Warwick Louth applies theory to practice in a new approach to battlefield investigation and interpretation. By comparing the instructions in 17th century military manuals with the evidence from Conflict Archaeology, Warwick Louth demonstrates how his groundbreaking methodology can improve our understanding of the events that took place on the civil war battlefields of Britain.