The Road to Rocroi

González de León, Fernando. The Road to Rocroi: Class, Culture, and Command in the Spanish Army of Flanders, 1567-1659. Leiden: Brill, 2009.

This is a remarkable book which may be said to have advanced the several analyses of the myriad problems of the Spanish Army of Flanders that have marked the works of Parker and others.

Personally, I used the work to provide many biographical details on the officers associated with the army, as a primer on the professional military literature of the late 16th-early 17th centuries, and as yet another – in this case very full – narrative and analysis of the decisive Battle of Rocroi (1643), which of course is seen as marking the end of Spanish military ascendancy in Europe.