Book · 1976
The Face of Battle
by John Keegan
John Keegan dismantles the mythology of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme by asking what it was actually like to stand in the line.
What does Reddit think of The Face of Battle?
Seven mentions across r/AskHistorians and r/history over seven years — small sample, but the citations land in threads with serious upvote weight. r/AskHistorians accounts for four of those mentions (↑1481, ↑88, ↑65), where the book surfaces when historians need a credible source on the physical experience of medieval combat, specifically the French cavalry at Agincourt. Commenters reach for Keegan when they want to push past chronicle-level accounts and into the mud. r/history's three mentions run the same errand: one recommender at ↑819 describes Keegan as dismantling battle myths and doing close textual work on Thucydides, which is a sharper pitch than most reviews manage. The sentiment scores register neutral across both subs, which is less a sign of ambivalence than a reflection that these are primarily citations inside longer arguments, not reviews. Nobody is panning it. The absence of negative takes in any of the six unique commenters matches the book's academic reputation: foundational enough that critics don't bother.
Community feedback & reader fit
Themes
- · Ground-level experience of combat vs. top-down military history
- · Demythologizing famous battles (Agincourt, Waterloo, the Somme)
- · Close reading of primary sources and chronicles
- · Medieval and early-modern warfare as physical reality
- · The historian's method as argument
Common praise
- + Commenters at ↑819 recommend it specifically because Keegan applies close textual analysis to sources like Thucydides — not just retelling events.
- + r/AskHistorians threads at ↑1481 cite it to shut down myths about knight invulnerability at Agincourt, treating it as authoritative.
- + The Waterloo chapter gets used to answer detailed questions about infantry psychology, which suggests readers actually retain the specific arguments.
- + Six unique commenters across seven years and none register a complaint — unusually clean reputation for a book this old.
Common criticism
- − No commenter in the dataset offers a critical take, which may reflect the book's canonical status rather than the absence of flaws.
- − The data is thin — 7 total mentions means the Reddit signal can't confirm whether casual readers find it dry or whether the Somme chapter holds up against newer scholarship.
Who it's for
If you read a thread about Agincourt and kept hitting the same question — what did it actually feel like to be on that field — this is the book. Military history students on r/AskHistorians cite it as table-stakes reading, the kind you reference rather than argue about. Someone who treats popular battle narratives as satisfying probably won't want Keegan's pace; he stops to work through a passage of Thucydides rather than push the action forward. Historians-in-training and serious amateurs who want the methodological argument, not just the story.
Mentions over time
Top subreddits
Which Reddit comments matter for The Face of Battle?
Top-upvoted quotes across the subreddits where this book is mentioned. Click through to read the full thread.
“The Battle of Agincourt is a great example of how even wealthy knights able to afford the best armour can and did end up dead in battle. The French knights were forced, because they were facing masses of archers, to advance mainly on foot (horse armour could not reliably keep out arrows). Because …
“I think you’d be really interested in a book called The Face of Battle by John Keegan. He moves to dismantle myths about battles and talk about how they really unfold. There’s a very good bit where he applies close analysis to a passage from Thucydides and talks about how all later descriptions of t…
“Heheh. We Military Historians have a long and difficult time ingratiating ourselves within the academy. It also extends to how we define ourselves. Brief lowdown on what has happened in the field, politically, from an academic perspective: Until the 1960s historians wrote mostly about politics, …
“I’ll take a stab at this, though I should preface by saying I am by no means an expert. I’ll lean on John Keegan’s “The Face of Battle” here, because he does dip into this particular question at length at various points in his chapter on Waterloo. Before I continue, it’s worth noting two caveats. Th…
“Being a French knight during the battle of Agincourt — being bogged down in the mud and rain, with full suits of armor, stuck in a bottleneck and getting trampled by a stampede of other French guys in said armor, not being able to get up if you fall…I shudder thinking about it. John Keegan’s “The Fa…
“Those are great guesses. It's interesting to look at how the French were different and why after their Revolution; it explains a lot about human psychology on the infantry-dominated, muzzle-loading battlefield. ​ Infantry did dominate the battlefield because with the bayonet they had an ul…
Convinced? Pick up The Face of Battle
What else does r/AskHistorians read?
Other books mentioned in the same sub, ranked. Shared-sub overlap with this title breaks ties.
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Jared Diamond
A Pulitzer-winning argument that geography, not race, drove civilizational dominance — and the book historians most love to demolish.
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
Charles C. Mann
Charles Mann reconstructs the Americas before Columbus — bigger populations, denser cities, and more deliberate landscapes than most history classes ever admitted.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Edward Gibbon
An 18th-century historian spends six volumes arguing that Christianity and barbarians killed Rome, and three centuries of scholars haven't stopped arguing back.
Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era
James M. McPherson
James McPherson's one-volume Civil War history that r/AskHistorians recommends by name when someone asks where to start.
The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy
Adam Tooze
Adam Tooze's account of how Nazi Germany's economic desperation drove the war machine — and why it was always running out of time.
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
William L. Shirer
William Shirer's 1200-page eyewitness account of Nazi Germany, written by the CBS correspondent who watched it happen from inside Berlin.
The Face of Battle — frequently asked
What does Reddit actually say about The Face of Battle?+
Broadly positive by usage if not by explicit praise. Across 7 mentions and 6 unique commenters in r/AskHistorians and r/history, nobody argues against it. It shows up as a citation to support claims about medieval combat and battle psychology, not as a topic of debate. The highest-upvoted mention (↑1481 in r/AskHistorians) uses it to explain why French knights died at Agincourt despite their armor.
Is The Face of Battle still the go-to for Agincourt on Reddit?+
In r/AskHistorians threads, yes. Four of the book's 7 Reddit mentions come from that sub, and Keegan's analysis of the French cavalry — forced on foot to avoid archers, bogged in mud — gets cited as the authoritative version of events. No commenter in the tracked data disputes it or names a replacement.
Should I read The Face of Battle if I'm new to military history?+
Depends on your tolerance for method. A r/history commenter at ↑819 pitches it as myth-busting and readable — Keegan close-reads Thucydides rather than just narrating. That's an analytical book, not a narrative one. If you want the argument about how battles actually work, yes. If you want the sweep of a campaign, start elsewhere.
How does The Face of Battle hold up in academic history discussions on Reddit?+
It holds up as a citation, which is the stronger test. r/AskHistorians commenters use it to anchor arguments about armor, infantry psychology, and primary-source methodology — not as a dated curiosity. The data runs through 2024, and the most recent r/AskHistorians mention still treats it as load-bearing rather than historical.