Winner of the Wolfson and Hawthornden prizes for such books as A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962 and The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916, Alistair Horne has been a close observer of war and history for more than 50 years. Here he revisits six battles of the past century and examines the strategies, leadership, preparation, and geopolitical goals of aggressors and defenders to reveal the trait of hubris that links them all. From the 1905 Battle of Tsushima in the Russo-Japanese War to Hitler's 1941 bid to capture Moscow, from MacArthur's disastrous advance in Korea to the French downfall at Dien Bien Phu, Horne shows how each of these battles was won or lost due to the same excessive human pride that toppled the heroes of Greek tragedy.