John Keegan, who died Thursday at the age of 78, was arguably the most important military historian of the 20th century.
The prolific author’s 20-plus books include his standout, “The Face of Battle” (1976) — a seminal work of popular history.
Neither overly romantic nor maudlin, Keegan took an adult approach to the reality of war. In “The Face of Battle,” he zeroed in on three key battles in the history of his native England — Agincourt in 1415, Waterloo in 1815 and the Somme in 1916 — eschewing the bird’s-eye view that informs many war histories in favor of an approach that reflected the perspectives of participants, from the average soldier to prisoners of war.
In “A History of Warfare” (1993), he looked at how cultural and technological advances — including the use of horses — transformed the tactics of war.
Keegan proved he knew his US military history as well as his British in his 1996 work, “Fields of Battle: The Wars of North America,” which examined warfare’s role in the development of the United States; in “The Iraq War” (2004), and in “The American Civil War” (2009).
He was also a respected lecturer, teaching for 25 years at the Military Academy in Sandhurst, England.
And he maintained an abiding interest in contemporary conflicts, penning a regular column as military editor for the UK’s Daily Telegraph.
Surely, it’s difficult to overstate John Keegan’s contributions in a enormously important field of study. RIP.