The Hun: Scourge of God AD 375–565 (Warrior, 111)

I collect Osprey books as I've rarely been disappointed with any of them. This was more or less picked out at random to fill some time on a road trip from subjects I knew nothing about. It wasn't as engaging as other books from the series that I have read, but I do feel like I know something about the subject matter, and therefore it filled it's purpose! It does have a good number of pictures and illustrations - like all Osprey titles.

Osprey's "The Huns" was quite a disappointment. The biggest flaw was that author Nic Fields failed to integrate any of the recent scholarship on the subject for this book. There has been a flood of archeological and physical anthropological research from Eastern European scholars regarding the Huns and the Pannonian/Hungarian plain in the last 30 years. Much has been translated into English and is available at most decent research libraries. Fields, also, fails to incorporate more recent Western scholarly materials, such as the works of Denis Sinor or Peter Golden. Based mostly on classical sources, Fields's work reads as if written by a 1920's British armchair historian. This was a huge lost opportunity for Osprey as a follow up to David Nicolle's tremendous if overly ambitious (tracing a thousand years of steppe cultures), Attila and the Nomad Hordes.Another disappointment was the illustrations. Fields lards the book with illustrations and photos from the Renaissance, the European Romantic period, a Verdi opera, and from the cinema (including a photo of Anthony Quinn playing Attila.) While these may be interesting in a contemporary cultural context, they add absolutely nothing to a portrayal of the Hunnic culture. Fields, also, includes the ubiquitous photos of Greek artisan representations of Scythians on golden bowls, which pre-date Attila by about 700 years and armor from the Chinese Qianlong Emperor c. 1750 C.E., i.e. 1400 years after the Hun era! They are so askew chronologically that it's hard not to look at these inclusions as less than energetic scholarship. If he had emphasized more recent source material he would have found far more engaging images. There are some chronologically appropriate photos included: a skull displaying "Hunnic" cranial deformation, an Alemanni spangenhelm from the period, and Hunnic/Gothic jewelry. These are germane and powerful photographs. It is unfortunate that there aren't more photos as relevant as this in the book.The final straw is the color plates, usually the high point of Osprey books. Christa Hook's illustrations are poorly drawn and ugly. She has done fine work for Osprey in the past. Her work on "Saracen Faris," "Knights of Outremer," "Norman Knight," "Late Roman Cavalry"," and other works are more than competent. But here, the work appears rushed. Her representations of Hun warriors are rough and grotesque. Moreover, there are only 6 color plates in the book. The other Osprey Warrior series books that I've seen have at least 10-12 color plates.This work appears that it was done on the quick and cheap.

I was very disappointed in this book about the "Neighbors from Hell". The text was so-so but the illustrations were a disappointment. Pity as it (The Subject) is a great theme what with the birth of the Dark Ages and the "Fall" of Rome. That and that symbol of a really bad man - Attila you could of had a compelling story. The "Elite" book of Attila by the same publishers is a better deal.

Excellent

It informed me of issues I didn't know.

To a point, I agree with the previous reviews in that it was not, in text or pictures, one of the better Osprey books. I disagree on the plates however. Although there were only six, they were still pretty good (albeit not Christa Hook's best). There is really little information in this book that cannot be gleaned from previous Osprey titles.

Good history.

This is indeed a bit of a disappointing title because it is bland, rather than poor, although it does include both mistakes (unless there are typos due to poor editing, perhaps) and what seem to be attempts to attempts to sound pedantic. One example of the later is Clovis' victory in AD 507 against the Visigoths at "Campus Vogladensis" which the author indicates as being at "(Voulon)". In fact, it is Vouillé, not very far from modern Poitiers and, incidentally, this has next to nothing to do with the Huns and should probably not even have been included in this title's chronology to begin with.More serious perhaps is the mention of Attila's raids in AD 441 and 443 against the Eastern Roman Empire, at a time when his elder brother Bleda was still alive and without even mentioning what he was up to, at the time. It seems, if I remember correctly, that both brothers lead those raids. Another point is that little is mentioned about Bleda's demise, which may (or may not) have been caused by foul play from Attila.Worse perhaps is the characterisation of Attila as someone who "delighted in war". This is both simplistic and speculative on behalf of the author. He needed to prove his right to rule through victorious raids. He also needed these victories to hold his heterogeneous coalition together. More generally and since he headed what had essentially become a predatory Empire, he needed to either extract either tribute or plunder from the Empires. For any of these three reasons, or in fact all three together, war was his only option and this had little to do with his personal preferences, which there is no point anyway in trying to second guess.Even when it gets to numbers, the book manages to disappoint. There is no estimate for the size of Attila's army at Châlons, although there were certainly not the hundreds of thousands that they were portrayed to be. In fact, both armies were probably more or less evenly matched. The Huns on Attila's side might have made up 30% or 40% of a total that may have reached some 50000 or so, based on the grazing possibilities offered by the Hungarian plain. Regarding the Huns as Byzantine mercenaries under Justinian, numbers were in the hundreds rather than the thousands. Belisarius brought some 400 (not 300!) with him to Africa against the Vandals. They were NOT part of his buccelarii which totalled a thousand (I just don't know where the author found they were 1100 - this is simply NOT in Procopius, the main source...).I won't go into details with regards to the Huns' lifestyle, riding skills or composite bows except to say that I expected better or all three aspects. This is where the contents are simply bland and mostly generic, rather than specific to the Huns. There is little for instance on their horses, apart from the general remarks about shaggy, sturdy, low maintenance ponies which could cover huge distances. However, the nobles and heavy cavalry of Attila's army were NOT riding these, but there is nothing about their war horses. Despite several pages on the bow, there is virtually nothing on the asymmetric bow, which seems to have been a speciality of the Huns. At the very least, I would have expected the author to explain why Huns bothered to use such a bow. What was the point and advantage that they derived from it.Then there are the plates, which I didn't like or appreciate, as other reviewers. Apart from disliking the rather "impressionist style" that the illustrator seems to fancy, I found that some of them simply did not "look and feel" real. This includes the bare chested Hun charging at the head of his fellow-warriors straight at a shield wall. Curiously, this wall is supposed to be made of Alans (that is horse archers and heavy cavalry), but all the warriors are fighting on foot and one of them at least is wielding a francisc (and Frankish battle axe, also used by the Alamanni and the Burgondes). Moreover, we are supposed to be able to identify Sangiban somewhere in the third rank. I have had this book for half a dozen years and I am still looking for him! The point here is that the text simply does not seem to correspond to the plate in what is just another example of slap-dash sloppiness which seems to have annoyed quite a few reviewers...Two stars and to be avoided...

I do not usually review Ospreys, on the basis that 'they are what they are' - short summary books for wargamers, modellers and amateur historians. It's a great niche, and much valued by its customers. BUT - if they produce more as bad as this one, people will stop buying. The most common reason for purchase is to assist with painting miniature fugures. How can Christa Hook's typically muddy, unclear rubbish be any use for this? (If only Angus McBride would rise again!) All here illustrations seem to take place at night or dusk, or in a sand storm. If there is a row of warriors, they all have the same colour shield - blank of course. Imagination-less, no interest in the sources. I thought her Ottoman illustrations were poor. These are pointless. The only interest is in the depictions of decorative items, a goal better served by photographs anyway. The illustrations are so poor that none was considered sufficiently usable on the front cover, as is usually the case on an Osprey. Instead we get a Spanish nineteenth century a-historical painting of Attila and the Huns at the gallop in a muddy, dark sandstorm too!Talking of photos. This is also the worst set I have ever seen in an Osprey. (Pity I can't blame Christa Hook for them!) Duplication is the biggest crime, including duplicating the cover pic in black and white - why bother? 2 huge pictures of the same ceramic horse just to show the brands on its side? Obvious filler. This is made even more unacceptable when we are given TWO pics of Goths submitting to Romans, from a marble plinth in Istanbul. Irrelevant once. No detail to be seen once. So why do it twice? Parthian shot pic - TWICE - from an Italian vase, by the way. Stuff from Iran may be relevant, but a pic of a mosaic of late Romans? Pic of French actor dressed as a Hun in the 1800s. 1924 film? 1980 Opera? Somebody was not aware they were doing a book about ancient Huns!Does Nic Fields' text save the day. Not really. He gets enthusiastic writing about Hun bowmanship, and says some interesting things there, but in such a short book this is at the expense of the history and what most people want - the military. I found the 'meat' to be pap, but the bones to be useful. By bones I mean the Chronology, the Bibliography, and believe it or not, the Introduction, which is an excellent summary of available relevant ancient texts. These text are used assiduously to start with - and referenced properly. Then he seem to suddenly to give up and the remainder of the book must have been written under duress or on medication....Did you know that "a bow relies on sending an arrow deep into the body of its victim'? Wow. What vital new info.

T.R.'s review - what a stinker! 16 pages on bow construction - fancy that! Well I did, so I bought it. The more it annoys T.R. the better, I thought. Besides, Nic Fields' Roman Cavalryman was pretty decent, so this book just couldn't be as bad as it was painted. Alas. Nic Fields has overreached himself in these (only 9) pages on archery and the composite bow. I regret having to say so, but errors occur in almost every paragraph; nor are they trivial. He seems indeed to have read widely, but not to have digested his subject. Take this: "Put simply, the sinew gives the bow its penetration, the horn its speed" (p.30). On the contrary, most modern bowyers would find this very strange (especially coming from an ex-biochemist) and obscure. What N.F doesn't tell us is that it is taken directly and uncritically from "The Rites of Zhou", thought by expert Stephen Selby (see p.90, Chinese Archery - it's in the bibliography!) to have originated in the late Western Han Dynasty about 2000 years ago. Selby's own comment is that this attribution of function is "difficult to argue". The same text explains the properties of horn in terms of qi (chi) and Yin and Yang. I don't suppose that N.F. used this conceptual framework with his archaeology students. He really ought to own up. Sorry, I can't go on right now. If anyone is interested in reading more of this kind of stuff (obviously not you, T.R) let me know.

Contrary to most of the Osprey books (I have more than three hundred them now, after 20 years of collecting) this is a poor quality thing. The text is at the very best average, the color plates are just HORRIBLE!! I fully agree with the previous review - Christa Hook became now a real problem for the Osprey fans. I am going to check carefully for the next books and will avoid those illustrated by her. Maybe one day they will reissue them with real artwork.