Throughout history, nature ? its resources, landscape and terrain ? has shaped the tactics of warfare and determined its outcomes. From the medieval English Fens to the 20th century Iraqi Marsh Arabs, landscapes have fostered resistance and dissention. Harnessed by people under threat the landscape has influenced strategies and tactics. Water and wetland halted campaigns in the Florida Everglades and in the Franco-Prussian War of the late 1800s. In the Second World War the Dutch flooded the drained polders to halt the Nazi advance and in 1938 the Chinese nationalist forces breached the flood-dykes of the Yellow River to halt the Japanese advance. Mountain ranges and deserts have long provided landscapes for resistance fighters. From the former Yugoslavia to Afghanistan these gnarly battlescapes traverse time and space. Libyan fighters held off invading Italian forces by operating from the caves and valleys of the Green Mountains and the Welsh defended their mountainous principalities against the Angevin Normans. The landscapes and heritage of past conflicts, defensive and offensive structures, and much more are brough together in this comprehensive study. AUTHOR: Professor Ian Rotherham is an expert on a range of environmental issues, including urban wildlife, extreme weather, flooding and climate change. He has published extensively in academic journals, and has released a number of books on UK wildlife and the environment. He writes regular columns for local and regional newspapers, hosts a Radion Sheffield weekly phone in. Ian works extensively with the media as a writer, broadcaster and specialist commentator on key environmental issues. He has advised documentaries such as BBC Horizon, and has advised and appeared in BBC Panorama and on all major news channels. He regularly works with the BBC Radio 4 Natural History team and the BBC Radio 4 History Programme. He has also advised and appeared for Countryfile and BBC Spring Watch/Autumn Watch.
