Military

Arthur Marwick explores two contrasting titles on the First World War.

Paul Preston follows the unsettled road leading to the clash between the Republicans and Nationalists.

Resistance to Napoleon in the Iberian peninsula gave a little-known English general a unique opportunity to remould the Portuguese army.

John Maddicott argues that Edward III's bid for glory in France was motivated by concerns about England's neighbours and trade as well as amour propre for his claim to the throne of Philip of Valois.

Franco's traditional image has been as a canny neutral in the struggle between the Allied and Axis powers. But in 1940 his aspirations for an African empire drew him to within an ace of war with Britain.

Asa Briggs examines a well-balanced synthesis of the period.

Henry Tudor defeated and killed Richard III in battle in August 1485. That much is certain. Colin Richmond, however, wonders how the battle was fought; what prompted Yorkists to defect to the Lancastrian side; and above all, where exactly did the battle take place?

War in the Middle Ages, by Philip Contamine. xvi + 387 pp. (Basil Black- well, £17.50).

Geoffrey Parker travels to Germany to revisit the sites of the 17th-century conflict that saw the decline of the Holy Roman Empire and Habsburgs.