Dimensions
165 x 242 x 41mm
Failure is fascinating, partly because it is so common. In the twentieth century, Enoch Powell claimed that "All political lives end in failure"; while according to Winston Churchill, "Success is never final". This has always been true: Geoffrey Parker's new book examines ten cases, from the history of Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, of defeat snatched from the jaws of victory.
Parker's reputation as a pre-eminent historian of the early modern world rests upon his work in two areas: the reign of Philip II of Spain and the "military revolution" of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This collection includes some of his outstanding contributions in both fields.
Like all Parker's work, these ten studies are lucid, provocative and engaging: a stimulating selection of the work of one of the world's leading historians.