Learning About Military Strategy From “The Dangerous Book for Boys”

I mentioned recently that I’m currently reading
The Dangerous Book for Boysby Conn and Hal Iggulden.

It’s going well. I was going page-by-page, but the structure of the book allows for skipping around. Artillary, famous battles and military strategy/tactics are subjects I couldn’t resist skipping ahead to read.

I was impressed with the summaries of historic battles ranging from ancient Greecian and Roman to Waterloo and The Alamo. There’s a lot of info I don’t think I’ve heard before. For example, I had seen the Michael Caine movie Zulu before, but the book explained for me the background story of Rorke’s Drift. Illustrations or maps accompany each battle covered.

As a man, of course I like to blow stuff up. I watch Mythbusters religiously. Well, the Iggulden brothers cover artillery and weapons too. They’ve included really good instructions on how to make a bow and arrow, including how to nap arrow heads from flint.

Among artillery subjects is the The Trebuchet — my all-time favorite machine of war. Fortunately now-a-days it’s used for hurling objects and small cars great distances. I love watching videos of these home-built engines of insanity. I really wish the book had some detailed instructions on building a Trebuchet to scale.

These topics were cool for me, but my eight year olds didn’t seem to be interested at this time. They don’t realize yet that they take these real examples and break down how to use them for next winter’s snow forts and snowball fights.
-BD

Full Disclosure: The folks at Harper Collins had contacted me to ask if I’d be interested in checking out the book. I am not being paid for this. My comments and opinions are my own as a courtesy for receiving a copy of the book.