Military history book series in reading order

Bernard Cornwell

67 books• 10 series

Bernard Cornwell is an English historical novelist, born on 23 February 1944, who has also written a history of the Waterloo campaign. The Richard Sharpe novels, about a rifleman in the Napoleonic Wars, are Cornwell's best-known work. The Saxon Stories run to thirteen novels about how England was unified. Cornwell's historical fiction draws mainly on English history across five series, alongside one series of contemporary thrillers, and the historical novels carry an end note comparing the story to the historical record. The catalogue lists 67 books from 1981, when Sharpe's Gold appeared, to Sharpe's Storm (2025).

W.E.B. Griffin was the best-known pen name of William Edmund Butterworth III (November 10, 1929 to February 12, 2019), an American author of military and detective fiction. Under the Griffin name Butterworth published 59 novels across seven series, 21 of them written with Butterworth's son, William E. Butterworth IV. The catalogue files 194 titles here, including 1960s books issued as W.E. Butterworth, Webb Beech and Walker E. Blake. Series include Brotherhood of War, Presidential Agent and M*A*S*H, and World War II and the U.S. Marine Corps recur in the subjects.

Harry Sidebottom writes historical fiction and history set in ancient Rome, with 22 books catalogued from Ancient Warfare (2004) to Those Who Are About to Die (2026). Warrior of Rome and Throne of the Caesars are the named series, and the character Ballista appears in the subjects. Fire in the East (2008), King of Kings (2009), Lion of the Sun (2010), The Caspian Gates (2011) and The Wolves of the North (2012) are among the novels. Iron And Rust (2014) and Blood and Steel (2015) follow.

Adrian Goldsworthy

32 books• 6 series

Adrian Goldsworthy is a British historian and novelist, born in 1969, who specialises in the history of ancient Rome. The catalogue holds 32 books from The Roman Army At War (1996) to Athens and Sparta (2026). Titles include The Punic Wars (2000), Caesar's Civil War (2002), Caesar (2006) and Cannae (2007). Series listed for Goldsworthy are Napoleonic Wars, Vindolanda and City Of Victory, and subjects cover the Roman army, the Punic Wars and the Peninsular War of 1807 to 1814.

Victor Davis Hanson

30 books• 3 series

Military history and classical Greece run through the 30 catalogued books of Victor Davis Hanson, an American classicist, military historian and conservative political commentator born September 5, 1953. The Western Way of War (1989) comes first, followed by Hoplites (1991), The Other Greeks (1995), Fields Without Dreams (1996), Who Killed Homer (1998) and Carnage and Culture (2001); The Counterrevolution (2026) is the newest. Hanson is professor emeritus of classics at California State University, Fresno, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a visiting professor at Hillsdale College. Hanson received the National Humanities Medal in 2007, and agriculture and family farms also appear among the subjects.

Hampton Sides

10 books

Hampton Sides, born Wade Hampton Sides in 1962, is an American historian, journalist and author of narrative history and literary nonfiction. Ghost Soldiers, Blood and Thunder, Hellhound on His Trail and On Desperate Ground are among the ten Sides books catalogued between Stomping Grounds (1992) and The Wide Wide Sea (2024). Sides is editor-at-large for Outside magazine, and magazine work by Sides has twice been nominated for National Magazine Awards. Subjects on file include military history, campaigns and Martin Luther King Jr.

Edward Marston writes historical crime fiction, and the catalogue of 117 books runs to The Corpse on the Bristol Train (2026). Inspector Robert Colbeck, Elizabethan Theater, Domesday, Home Front Detective, Dillman & Masefield / Ocean Liner Mysteries, Christopher Redmayne, Captain Rawson and Bow Street Rivals are among the series. Nicholas Bracewell and Lord Westfield's Men appear in the subjects, together with theater, police work, railroad travel and World War I. Alan Saxon and Merlin Richards are further series, and Marston is still publishing.

Max Hastings

37 books• 1 series

Max Hastings is a British journalist and military historian, born in 1945, who reported abroad for the BBC, served as editor-in-chief of The Daily Telegraph and edited the Evening Standard. Histories of war make up most of the writing: Bomber Command (1979), Victory in Europe (1985), Armageddon (2004) and Sword Beach: D-Day Baptism by Fire (2025). Thirty-three books are catalogued from America 1968 (1969) onward. Hastings also writes a column for Bloomberg Opinion and contributes to The Times and The Sunday Times.

Rick Atkinson

11 books• 2 series

Military history is Rick Atkinson's subject, researched at book length and published in trilogies. The Liberation Trilogy covers the Second World War in An Army at Dawn (2002), The Day of Battle (2007) and The Guns at Last Light (2013); the Revolution Trilogy turns to the American War of Independence and reaches The Fate of the Day in 2025. Earlier titles include The Long Gray Line (1989) and Crusade, on the Persian Gulf War. Atkinson's books are long, at a median of 644 pages.

R.F. Delderfield wrote English family sagas and popular history. The catalogue holds 55 titles published between 1946 and 1973, gathered into the Swann Family Saga, Horseman Riding By, Avenue and Diana. England, family life across generations, soldiers, the Napoleonic Wars and the Second World War supply the material, and Delderfield wrote history and biography alongside the novels. The 1950s were the busiest decade, and the run closes with Give Us This Day in 1973.

Matthew Hervey, an officer of the fictional British 6th Light Dragoons, carries Allan Mallinson's fiction from the late Napoleonic Wars into colonial campaigns in India, North America and South Africa. A Close Run Thing (1999) opens the sequence, followed by The Nizam's Daughters (2000), A Regimental Affair (2001), A Call to Arms (2002), The Sabre's Edge (2003) and Company of Spears (2006). Mallinson, born in 1949, is an English author and a retired British Army brigadier, and also writes military history, reaching the First World War. The catalogue holds 19 books through 2020, at a median 448 pages.

Simon Scarrow

65 books• 11 series

Simon Scarrow writes historical fiction, most of it Roman. Quintus Licinius Cato and Lucius Cornelius Macro lead the Eagle series, which opens with Under the Eagle (2000). The Roman Arena, Gladiator and Pirata lines share that setting, while the Revolution Quartet and the Berlin wartime thrillers featuring CI Schenke move elsewhere. Sixty-six catalogued books reach The Sword of Rome, and Sons of the Reich is scheduled for 2027.

Arthur Conan Doyle

164 books• 18 series

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 to 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. Doyle wrote four novels and fifty-six short stories about the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Dr. Watson. A Study in Scarlet (1887), The Sign of Four (1890) and A Scandal in Bohemia (1891) are among the catalogued titles. The Lost World (1912) introduced Professor Challenger and gave its name to a subgenre of speculative fiction. Doyle also produced over 200 stories and articles, four volumes of poetry and stage works, and was knighted in the 1902 Coronation Honours. The Captain of the Polestar (1883) is the earliest catalogued title.

Captain Richard Woodman (1944-2024) was an English merchant navy officer, novelist and naval historian who served mainly with Trinity House and retired in 1997 after a 37-year career at sea to write full time. Nathaniel Drinkwater carries the Napoleonic naval fiction, opening with An Eye of the Fleet (1981) and running through A King's Cutter (1982), A Brig of War (1983), The Bomb Vessel (1985) and Baltic Mission (1986). William Kite, Kit Faulkner, James Dunbar and Sword of the State follow, with A History of the British Merchant Navy and Keepers of the Sea on the nonfiction side. The catalogue holds 74 books through 2023, at a median 250 pages.

Antony Beevor

21 books• 2 series

Sir Antony Beevor, born 14 December 1946, is a British military historian. Beevor's popular histories concentrate on the Second World War and the Spanish Civil War, and more recent work covers the Russian Revolution and Russian Civil War. After Winchester College and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Beevor commanded a tank troop in the 11th Hussars in Germany and left the British Army in 1970 to write. Beevor has been a visiting professor at Birkbeck, University of London, and the University of Kent. The catalogue lists 21 books from The Violent Brink (1975) to Rasputin: The Downfall of the Romanovs (2026), including Stalingrad and Berlin: The Downfall 1945.