All commanders know that an army (or navy) cannot operate without supplies, yet most aspects of war studies emphasize strategy, tactics, weaponry, and command. Jeremy Black fills a gap in war studies with logistics as a huge subject at the center of all conflict, globally and historically. The focus is on key conflicts, developments, and concepts—illustrating the vital role of logistics with technologies changing but underlying issues remaining constant. Here is a world history of logistics—a veritable compendium—but within a detailed and comprehensive but concise text. Factors affecting logistics include, for example, climate, geography, food supplies, welfare of troops, payment, transport, communications, terrain and distance, but also government policy, stability, and financial conditions. All are considered, including theoretical and practical factors of supply, from classical, ancient, early and medieval times, to modern eras of industrial warfare, especially with oil and steam, and scientific and technical advances—even cyber warfare and smart weapons.
Author
Professor Jeremy Black MBE is an English historian and a Professor of History at the University of Exeter. He is a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of America and the West at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is the author of over 100 books, principally but not exclusively on 18th-century British politics and international relations, and has been described as "the most prolific historical scholar of our age". Black graduated from Queens' College, Cambridge with a starred first, and then undertook postgraduate work at St John's and Merton Colleges, Oxford. He taught at Durham University for 16 years from 1980 to 1996, firstly as a lecturer and then as a Professor. In 1996 he moved to Exeter University where he took up the post of Professor of History. He has lectured extensively in Australasia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and the U.S.. He was editor of Archives, the journal of the British Records Association, from 1989 to 2005. He has served on the Council of the British Records Association (1989–2005); the Council of the Royal Historical Society (1993–1996 and 1997–2000); and the Council of the List and Index Society (from 1997). He has sat on the editorial boards of History Today, International History Review, Journal of Military History, Media History and the Journal of the Royal United Services Institute (now the RUSI Journal). He is an advisory fellow of the Barsanti Military History Center at the University of North Texas. He was awarded an MBE in 2000 for services to stamp design, as advisor to the Royal Mail from 1997.
