A stirring account of the most influential battle in history: For millennia, Carthage's triumph over Rome at Cannae in 216 BCE has inspired reverent awe. It was the battle that countless armies tried to imitate, most notably in World Wars I & II, the battle that obsessed military minds. Yet no general ever matched Hannibal's unexpected, innovative & brutal military victory—the costliest day of combat for any army in history. Robert L. O'Connell, an admired military historian, now tells the whole story of Cannae, giving a stirring account of this apocalyptic battle of the 2nd Punic War, its causes & consequences. O'Connell shows how a restive Rome amassed a giant army to punish Carthage's commander, who'd dealt them deadly blows at Trebia & Lake Trasimene, & how Hannibal outwitted enemies that outnumbered him. He describes Hannibal's strategy of blinding his opponents with sun & dust, enveloping them in a deadly embrace & sealing their escape, before launching a massive knife fight that would kill 48,000 men in close contact. The Ghosts of Cannae then conveys how this disastrous pivot point in Rome's history ultimately led to the republic's resurgence & the creation of its empire. Piecing together decayed shreds of ancient reportage, the author paints powerful portraits of the leading players: Hannibal, resolutely sane & uncannily strategic; Varro, Rome's co-consul scapegoated for the loss; & Scipio Africanus, the surviving, self-promoting Roman military tribune who would one day pay back Hannibal at Zama in N. Africa. Finally, O'Connell reveals how Cannae's legend has inspired & haunted military leaders ever since, & the lessons it teaches. Superbly researched, written with erudite wit, The Ghosts of Cannae is the definitive account of a battle whose history still resonates.
Author
Robert L. O’Connell was educated at Colgate University and the University of Virginia, where he received a Ph.D. in history. He worked for three decades in the U.S. Intelligence Community, before becoming a Visiting Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey California. He has two grown children and lives with his wife in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is the author of six published histories and one novel. Besides Fierce Patriot, the Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman (Random House, 2014), he has also written The Ghosts of Cannae: Hannibal and the Darkest Hour of the Roman Republic (Random House,, 2010), Soul of the Sword (The Free Press, 2002), Ride of the Second Horseman: the Birth and Death of War (Oxford University Press, 1995), Sacred Vessels: the Cult of the Battleship and the Rise of the U.S. Navy (Oxford University Press, 1993), Of Arms and Men; a History of War, Weapons and Aggression (Oxford University Press, 1989), and Fast Eddie: a Novel in Many Voices(Morrow, 1999).
