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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Hannibal Barca and the Second Punic War

Hannibal Barca and the Second Punic War

Sverdrup, Carl Fredrik

Paperback

Series: From Alexander to Adrianople 3000 Bce-400 CE

Presidents & Heads of StateAncient RomeGeneral Military History

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 180672264X
ISBN13: 9781806722648
Publisher: Helion & Company
Pages: 356
Language: English
A rigorous, evidence-led reconstruction quantifies forces, losses, and strategic choices across the Second Punic War from Iberia to the eastern Mediterranean.

Hannibal Barca and the Second Punic War reexamines the Second Punic War from the ground up. Instead of retelling set-piece battles, it reconstructs campaigns with numbers orders of battle, losses, and force generation and tests every claim against the primary sources. The result is a clear, evidence-led narrative from Iberia to Italy, Africa, and even Hannibal's post-war campaigning in the eastern Mediterranean.

Two convictions drive the work. First, that Rome's greatest military crisis can only be understood by quantifying the war: how many soldiers fought, where they were lost, and how fast either side could replace them. Second, that our main witness, Polybius brilliant but partisan toward the Scipios - must be read critically, not followed slavishly.

Together, these principles redefine Hannibal not as a tactician without a plan after Cannae, but as a commander who adapted his strategy under relentless numerical pressure.

New analyses shed light on the diffusion of the Macedonian phalanx and the emergence of the cohort legion; the use of reserves; the Battle of Tunis; Hannibal's actual Alpine attrition; new perspectives on Trebia and Cannae, Hannibal's post-Cannae strategy, Scipio Africanus' conquest of Iberia, Rome's two battles against the llergetes; and the Zama campaign from initial preparations to the final clash. Readers receive a testable framework - what probably happened, why, and how the commanders thought - rather than a narrative of inevitability. Hannibal Barca and the Second Punic War is a must-read for historians, serious enthusiasts, and anyone who wants to weigh the evidence themselves.

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