Warpaths: Travels of a Military Historian in North America, by John Keegan (Pimlico, £9,99 in UK)

America still bears the relics, scars and trenches of old battles, including some of the forts built originally by the French at the time when France came close to colonising it all from north to south. Keegan's pilgrimages over battlegrounds of the past give him ideal opportunities to muse over history and, of course, to re create these battles and campaigns, notably Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown in 1781 which ensured American independence. The Civil War gives him equal opportunities, notably the sites of the bloody Seven Days' Battle in which McClellan, the Northern commander, abandoned his advance on Richmond at the very moment when things seemed to be swinging his way.