This is a beautifully produced little work, timed to catch the wave of public interest in the 90th anniversary of the one of the greatest and most important battles ever fought by the British. For anyone with a passing interest, or perhaps someone generally interested in military history, it makes a good read. For those with more specialist interest like myself, I think it is overambitious and by trying to cover too much ground in a relatively short work, suffers in consequence.

Martin Pegler was curator at the Royal Armouries in Leeds, so perhaps it is not surprising that a considerable chunk of the book is taken up by technical descriptions of the weapons of the infantryman - machine guns, rifles and pistols but not grenades - of both sides. In places the book is very much that of the infantry soldier - for example, the orders of battle that are given describe all the infantry units but not the artillery, engineers or other services. The weapons section, OOB, glossary, bibliography and biographical notes take up 47 of the 178 pages.

The remainder is a canter through the strategic background to the battle and the unfolding of the battle itself. There are plenty of good photographs. Those looking for detail of what the Xth Umpshires did at some trench on a given day will be disappointed. The scale of the battle means that it is just not possible to cover down to that level in a work like this. But, to his credit, Martin does not dwell on the famous "First Day" but takes us all through the months to the mud of the Le Transloy Ridge and Beaumont Hamel in November 1916, at a summary level.

If you want detail, you will need the Official History, or perhaps Chris McCarthy's "The Somme: the day by day account", not "The attack on the Somme". If you want a quick overview or a good gift for someone generally interested, this would be a good choice.

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