Timothy Dawson

An Osprey with good drawings, some re-enactor photos, and some text about the soldiers of this not-very-military Empire.

A better than average number in this series, as the author appears to have real expertise in the subject. Besides the usual nuts and bolts details, the most interesting suggestion is that the infantry of the last high point of Byzantium might have been a way station to the reintroduction of drilled foot soldiers in Western Europe.

A really nice, compact and fact-packed read this. Much like the other books in the Osprey series the text is interspersed with illustrations, diagrams and photographs of archaeological artefacts.

I demolished it in a couple of hours and the only reason I didn't give it five stars was because I felt the book could have been far longer; a lot more detail that I was interested in that was only briefly touched on.

A fine starting point for research though.

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