Declarations of War — Len Deighton

In Len Deighton's only collection of short fiction, he explores the effects of war on human nature and how it pushes us to act like machines, often leading to extraordinary deeds, both good and bad.

Thirteen compelling stories span twenty-three centuries of warfare, from Hannibal's march on Rome, when the brilliant young tactician used strange beasts of war to terrorize the troops of one the toughest and most skillful armies in history, to the efforts of a belittled Civil War general to get his men to face the Confederate Army, from a dogfight unfolding over an artillery-blasted French battle-line to the Vietnam War, where two lost American soldiers stumble across an abandoned military airfield.