Similar to this article, each battle is presented with clinical detachment and a surprising depth of detail. It always walks you through the historical context and, crucially, the stakes: every battle covered by the book is decisive, since it affected geopolitical history.
Someone should write a book, "100 Decisive Tech Battles: From Ancient Times to the Present," a tongue in cheek reference to https://www.amazon.com/100-Decisive-Battles-Ancient-Present/...
The book is excellent, and analyzes battles with a clinical detachment not really found in most history texts.
But each battle is decisive: it shaped the world. There are many skirmishes that would be interesting to analyze but out of scope for the book. That's what makes it a fascinating collection.
If we had to think of 100 technology "battles" that reshaped the world, I wonder what they would be? There is so much freedom in the criteria that it's hard to know where to constrain it: Electricity, plumbing, grocery stores, etc have all shaped the world. Many had a "decisive" effect in that it was technology vs technology, and one tech came out the winner.
I think computing alone could fill a book of 100 tech battles, and it would be interesting to try. Which stories were decisive? It would take months to decide, but it would be enjoyable work.
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/100-Decisive-Battles-Ancient-Present/...
It looks like there's a PDF here, but you'll be waiting 2min: http://rogers.sharpschool.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_73281...
Here's the list of battles:
- https://i.imgur.com/izTpwpG.png
- https://i.imgur.com/sdUljXu.png
Here's the list in text form, sorted by year, for blind users: https://gist.github.com/shawwn/099cadef6d0e2600172cd0d202b16...