Peter Darman Books in Order

This illustrated reference surveys the uniforms worn by major and minor combatants in the Second World War. Two hundred fifty color artworks by Malcolm MacGregor and Pierre Turner depict military dress through images originally created for The Elite partwork.

British volunteers describe their service in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War. Drawing on interviews preserved by the Imperial War Museum, Peter Darman assembles personal memories of the conflict and the experiences of those who fought in it.

Service personnel recount two decades of war in the Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Their firsthand accounts describe combat, boredom, injury, and psychological consequences, showing how military operations are experienced by the people who carry them out and live with their aftermath.

Captured while fighting Rome, Parthian warrior Pacorus is taken to Italy in chains and freed by Spartacus's escaped gladiators. He joins their rebellion, testing his honor and loyalty as Roman forces close in on the growing slave army.

Returning from Spartacus's defeated rebellion, Pacorus becomes king of Dura and marries Gallia. Discontent at home, hostile desert neighbors, and a succession crisis draw him into civil war just as Rome exploits Parthia's divisions.

A murder breaks Parthia's uneasy peace and sends Pacorus east against Mithridates and Narses. Expecting a short campaign, he discovers enemies prepared for a prolonged war that will determine who controls the empire.

Exhausted by civil war, Parthia faces an Armenian invasion while Roman commander Crassus advances from the west. Pacorus must rally Dura's forces for a confrontation at Carrhae that could decide the future of both empires.

Conrad Wolff travels to Livonia in 1210 and joins the Sword Brothers' campaigns against pagan communities. As the military order expands its power, he becomes entangled in conflicts with Estonian tribes, Lithuanians, and Russians across the Baltic frontier.

With German crusaders departing Livonia, the Bishop of Riga seeks Danish help while Conrad Wolff faces a new invasion. Charged with raising a makeshift army, Conrad must delay overwhelming enemies long enough for fresh knights to reach the threatened crusader state.

A Danish blockade and pestilence threaten Livonia until King Valdemar's invasion of Oesel unexpectedly changes the balance of power. Conrad Wolff and the Sword Brothers confront renewed conflict in the east and a rising Lithuanian threat to the south.

Pacorus learns that one companion from Spartacus's rebellion was left behind in Roman slavery. Gathering trusted comrades, he sets out to find and free the missing man, following a dangerous trail toward the gladiatorial games at Ephesus.

Conrad Wolff's anger over an injustice draws Livonia and Estonia into dangerous political disputes. While war in Lithuania drains the Sword Brothers, a crisis in the frozen north forces him to make a decision with consequences for the entire order.

A hostile papal legate brings accusations against Conrad Wolff, threatening to divide the Baltic crusader state. As old enemies become allies and former friends exploit Livonia's weakness, Conrad and the Sword Brothers fight to preserve their lives and independence.

A renewed crusade against Novgorod draws Conrad Wolff and the Sword Brothers toward a final campaign. An enemy from Conrad's past revives his desire for revenge, setting events in motion that lead toward confrontation on frozen Lake Peipus.

Peter Darman examines one hundred events that shaped the Second World War, connecting battlefield developments with political, economic, social, and technological forces. The account considers pivotal decisions, individual sacrifices, strategic successes, and mistakes that influenced the conflict's eventual outcome.

Years after Carrhae, Pacorus's hopes of lasting peace end when Mark Antony invades Parthia. Initially rejected by the high king, Dura's veteran army becomes essential as mounting defeats threaten the empire and Pacorus's own family.

This military history examines deception during the Second World War, including camouflage, false intelligence, double agents, and fictitious forces. Examples from Europe, North Africa, the Pacific, and the United States reveal how misleading an enemy could change strategic possibilities.

King Spartacus of Gordyene steals temple gold to equip his troops, provoking enemies and entangling his family in a dangerous conflict. Military success offers power, but warnings about the kingdom's divine restrictions threaten everything he values.

Drafted into Russia's army in 1914, peasant Mikhail Petrov rises as the empire falls apart. Revolution sends him and a princess fleeing south, where he joins the White Volunteer Army and faces Bolshevik forces on the frozen Kuban steppe.

Pacorus travels east for his daughter's wedding, expecting celebration after the defeat of Mark Antony. Old rivalries and an emerging power beyond the Indus instead draw him into another struggle to preserve a divided Parthian Empire.

A birthday gathering at Dura gives way to renewed conflict as a threat from the east destabilizes Parthia. With friendships lost and old enemies becoming allies, Pacorus must confront a rebel coalition challenging the ruler he supports.

Pacorus turns from warfare to farming and irrigation, hoping Dura's prosperity will finally let him retire. Enemies seeking revenge undermine that peace, forcing him north into a campaign where military victory may carry a devastating personal cost.

Peace returns to Parthia, but a crisis in Media draws Pacorus and Gallia away from Dura with only a small force. Saving its new king may be the only way to prevent another destructive regional war.

Retired from imperial politics, Pacorus undertakes a personal journey while Gallia's covert campaign produces unexpected consequences. A northern invasion soon forces him back into command, with unreliable allies and an aging reputation complicating Parthia's defense.

An alphabetically arranged reference examines the Special Air Service from its wartime foundation through the Gulf War. More than six hundred entries cover campaigns, personnel, weapons, equipment, and techniques, placing the regiment's operations within their political and strategic settings.

Forced to flee Sicily, young shepherd Luca Baldi joins the Catalan mercenaries hired to defend the Byzantine Empire. Arriving in Constantinople in 1302, he must learn their brutal methods of warfare while fighting enemies of a collapsing imperial power.

After surviving danger in the north, Pacorus welcomes his return to Dura, but Gallia wants revenge. Her use of assassins and secret allies sets off consequences that threaten the kingdom, the empire, and an unsuspecting farmer.

Thirty years after Carrhae, Pacorus oversees an exchange of captured Roman standards for a royal hostage. A permanent peace seems possible, but Tiberius's ambitions and troubling signs threaten to turn diplomacy into another confrontation.

After defeating Byzantine forces, Luca Baldi and the Catalan Company enjoy their new power around Gallipoli. Financial pressures, old grievances, and Empress Irene's ambitions soon pull the mercenaries into fresh political struggles that threaten their hard-won position.

Betrayed by their Byzantine employers, the Catalan Company is cornered on the Gallipoli Peninsula. Luca Baldi and his fellow mercenaries prepare to confront an imperial army determined to destroy them before turning against the Turks in Anatolia.

Dura prospers within a newly secure Parthian Empire until elusive desert attackers begin strangling its economy. Facing his kingdom's decline, Pacorus leads an expedition to confront the mysterious Chosen One and force a decisive battle.

Luca Baldi and the Catalan Company face powerful enemies determined to destroy them, from the Byzantine court to the French aristocracy. Without money, allies, or land, the mercenaries approach a decisive confrontation that will settle their fate in Greece.

With his family flourishing and Parthia secure, Pacorus expects his lifetime of service to be nearly complete. An extraordinary opportunity instead sends him into one final adventure against an enemy threatening everything he has defended.

Swiss captain Leon Muller leads his comrades into Italy to fight for Milan against Venice. Their battlefield skill wins victories, but political manipulation and powerful enemies threaten to turn military success into defeat far from their homeland.

After escaping Constantinople's fall, Leon Muller and his Swiss mercenaries accept employment with Vlad Dracula. As Ottoman power threatens Wallachia, Hungary, and Serbia, they must fight amid rivalries that prevent Europe's rulers from mounting a united defense.

Leon Muller and his mercenaries defend Constantinople as an enormous Ottoman army approaches. With an unrealistic imperial court dismissing his warnings and relief unlikely, the Swiss soldiers face a siege that threatens both their lives and the empire's survival.

Victorious Swiss mercenary Leon Muller rises to influence in northern Italy alongside Sigmund Thyg. Their growing power attracts enemies determined to destroy their employer's achievements, leaving the soldiers vulnerable to political schemes that battlefield courage cannot easily overcome.

Swiss mercenary commander Leon Muller faces rebels, Vlad Dracula, Ottoman forces, and the Habsburgs around Hungary. As enemies converge from every direction, he must contend with his own flaws while leading the soldiers whose survival depends on him.

Leon Muller's power in Wallachia collapses as Ottoman forces prepare a major assault. Abandoned and outnumbered, he joins Hungarian commander John Hunyadi to defend against an army whose victory could alter the future of the region and Western Europe.

With Ottoman forces defeated, Leon Muller hopes for peace in Hungary but encounters shifting alliances and renewed conflict. The Habsburgs support his enemies, forcing the Swiss mercenary leader and his comrades into a struggle against opponents determined to annihilate them.

Leon Muller's victories have made him powerful in Hungary, but success brings resentment rather than gratitude. A campaign to relieve King Matthias's home and punish Vlad Dracula produces unexpected consequences, turning the Swiss mercenary's thoughts toward his long-absent homeland.

Kian Mihran, born to an enslaved woman, becomes a warrior after his betrothed's murder. Joining Cyrus's army as Persia rises against the Medes, he channels grief and vengeance into a military career that draws him into the making of an empire.

Warrior Kian Mihran serves Cyrus as Persian campaigns reach from Media to Babylon. Assassins, rivalries, and powerful priests threaten his future, while his bond with Ishtar and competing claims of love and duty shape the choices before him.