The typical military history presents a chronicle of battles and wars and the commanders and troops who fought them. This book takes a different approach. It presents battles and wars and people aplenty, but they are not its ultimate subjects. This book is about the turning points that not only make military history dynamic but crucial to the story of humanity and civilization. This book is about the decisions, acts, innovations, errors, ideas, successes, and failures that shaped the evolution of military art and science—strategy, tactics, and technology—and, in doing so, shaped the course of world history.

Here are the 100 points—from the birth of warfare in the Battle of Megiddo, 1457 BC, to the ongoing evolution of military history on its newest battlefield, cyberspace—at which the path of the warrior decisively turned on its long journey to where we find ourselves today.