Sebastien Le
Prestre, Marshal Vauban, was one of the greatest military engineers of all time.
His complex, highly sophisticated fortress designs, his advanced theories for
the defence and attack of fortified places, and his prolific work as a writer
and radical thinker on military and social affairs, mark him out as one of the
most influential military minds of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth
centuries. Yet no recent study of this extraordinary man has been published in
English. James Falkner, in this perceptive and lively new account of Vauban's
life and work, follows his career as a soldier from a dashing and brave young
cavalry officer to his emergence as a masterful military engineer. And he shows
that Vauban was much more than simply a superlative builder of fortresses, for
as a leading military commander serving Louis XIV, he perfected a method for
attacking fortifications in the most effective way, which became standard
practice until the present day. James Falkner's new study will add significantly
to the understanding of Vauban's achievements and the impact his work has had on
the history of warfare.
