New Osprey - Dutch Armies of the 80 Years War

[Phillius]

So, when I saw this advertised a couple of weeks ago, along with a discount offer from Osprey, I thought, why not. It came at a reasonable price and it has been a while since I bought one of these. It was due to be published on the 28th of March this year.

Well yesterday, the 22nd of March here in NZ, I got home to find it already in my letter box. Great service.

I flicked through it, standard Osprey nice pictures and what initially looked like sensible references.

Later in the evening I started reading. In the first paragraph of the second section (Background I think) it said that on his abdication Charles V left the German lands and northern Italy to his SON (!!!!!) Ferdinand, and Spain, southern Italy and the low Countries to his son Philip.

How can an organization with the resources of Osprey publishing, with so much focus on historical matter, make such a basic mistake about historical facts? What sort of people do they assign to read and review these books before they publish them?

Reminded me why I stopped buying them several years ago.

However, I will read the entire book and try to post a review here at some stage.

[Paul Richardson]

That's dreadful. It makes you lose confidence in everything in the book, which may well be unjustified.

[Condottiere]

What other mistakes are in this title? I didn't pre-order it from Amazon, as the author's listed credentials mention nothing about knowledge of the period, so I assumed it's going to be another Imperial Armies work.

[Metternich]

Maybe it was just bad proof-reading ?  I thought the two 30 Yrs War Imperial Armies books (Cavalry and Infantry) were ok, the Portugeuse Armies and Spanish Tercio books were skimpy.

[Condottiere]

Maybe it was just bad proof-reading ?  I thought the two 30 Yrs War Imperial Armies books (Cavalry and Infantry) were ok, the Portugeuse Armies and Spanish Tercio books were skimpy.

Nicolle's Portuguese title is flawed and it's like he was phoning it in, in contrast with his earlier El Cid and the Reconquista book.

How is the The Spanish Tercios 1536–1704 skimpy? Aside from a few trifle points, it's what I'm looking for in an Osprey and right up there with Brzezinski's two The Army of Gustavus Adolphus books. Instead of relying on the regurgitated 2nd hand nonsense in the English speaking market, it's based on Spanish sources. It's short, but what does one expect from a 48 page format?

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=257620


I'm keeping volume 1 of Imperial Armies as a lesson...

The author knows nothing about the subject and is a plagiarist.

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=185461

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=196424

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=407426

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=375093





   

[Sparrow]

I don't pretend to know much on the 30 Years War (sadly, my inability to read anything other than English closes down access to  many good sources  ) but even I recognised the two Osprey's on the Imperial army were lame ducks - don't waste your money on these.

A big shame because the Swedish volumes are really good.

[Hobbit]

I work for a publisher of military history and it is surprising how often people seem to think that "phoning it in", "rehashing secondary sources" and "virtual plagiarism" are acceptable. I won't name names but I recently compiled a report on a manuscript where I pasted the author's work side by side with the source material; in essence each individual sentence had been only very slightly rephrased (even to the extent that it appeared a thesaurus had been used but that the author didn't understand that not all synonyms could be directly substituted); even the artwork was very closely based on that of a well known publisher of 48 page military guides.  Needles to say we didn't accept the manuscript for publication. 

[Corso]

In my opinion, the Spanish Tercio book is ok. The two imperial ones are 3-star level, very good colour plates but information could have been better, especially wasted pages showing war background and unit lists - in a 48 page book you don't have much space to waste.

However, in 30years war setting for osprey, nothing beats Brezinski's books.