Star Wars: Battles That Changed The Galaxy
Explore the “Wars” in Star Wars as never before!
Enter a galaxy ravaged by conflict and discover the complete story of the epic struggles that define the Star Wars movies. This ambitious book presents major galactic conflicts from an in-world “historical” perspective: each battle is depicted with captivating imagery, explored with newly commissioned maps, and explained through a detailed analysis of tactics, famous commanders, legendary warriors, key moments, and its impact on wider galactic history.
This is the perfect book for any Star Wars fan, budding military historian, or would-be rebel hero!
Authors: Jason Fry, Cole Horton, Chris Kempshall, Amy Ratcliffe
Publication date: October 28, 2021
Pages: 256
ISBN: 9780744028683
It’s often overlooked that fifty percent of the franchise name we love so much is ‘Wars‘; The saga isn’t a giant game of patty cake, it’s serious stuff and it’s those legendary battles, skirmishes and conflicts that form the basis of this hefty tome, Star Wars: Battles That Changed The Galaxy. With GFFA lore heavyweights Jason Fry, Cole Horton, Chris Kempshall and Amy Ratcliffe involved there’s sure to be plenty of interesting angles and reveals littered throughout the book and indeed there is, impressing readers at every turn of the page and giving extra context to the network of galactic conflicts that stitch together the history of the Star Wars galaxy.
We’re kicking off the book in the era of the prequel trilogy, as ‘Battles of the Republic’ details the major engagements of the Clone Wars. The droid invasion of Naboo comes first, as we check out a very familiar Essential Atlas style map of the galaxy to see where the lay of the land was at the time of the invasion. Married to a handy Timeline, it’s clear to see the progressions of the war, as events moved beyond Naboo to Geonosis in Attack of the Clones and into the animated Clone Wars series through Christophsis and beyond. We see the political fallout, the major players, key combatants, decisive moments and the casualties of war. As the focus of the galaxy shifts from stability and peace to war and profit, the strategic worlds become ever more important, both for their resources as well as their tactical positioning in relation to trade routes and hyperspace lanes.
There’s never been a book that has so crisply detailed these major events, certainly not in the canon era. Married to evocative imagery from the films and animated and live action shows, it bolts together the story of the galaxy with vehicles and characters given prominence in a format that works well. The importance of ‘Capital Ships’ is looked at, floating cities that can subjugate entire worlds, while ‘Military Recruitment’ – be it enlisted, manufactured or grown from a petri dish – is delved into.
It’s a linear path through the four major war eras; the Clone Wars, the age of post-Republic Imperial expansion that fuelled the Galactic Civil War and beyond to the First Order-Resistance War of the sequel trilogy. That gives us deeper dives into the importance of ‘Hyperspace and Warfare’ and perhaps even more dangerously, ‘Propaganda’. With the Imperial war machine taxing and working the galaxy to near exhaustion, the propaganda machine drove every bit as hard, a PR exercise in hoodwinking the galaxy into believeing Palpatine’s vision of a ‘safe and secure society‘ really was his prime motivation.
Further pages look at ‘Intelligence and Espionage’, ‘Rebel Starfighter Doctrine’, ‘Neo-Imerialism’ (a fascinating chapter looking at the thinking behind the First Order and its seeds in the ashes of the Galactic Empire) and ‘New Republic Disarmament’, as well as a deeper look into ‘Military Uniforms’ of the era. It’s clear the sequel trilogy has a lot more story to tell, its chapters and engagements a light sketch compared to the rest of the eras, but that’s no criticism. Here is a book that could easily sustain a second edition in five years time as more stories are told, from a variety of eras coming our way in comics, books and the large and small screen.
As Star Wars expands, so does the scope of releases like this, filling in important holes in the timeline and giving even more depth and detail to the story of the galaxy. Right now, the question of whether an updated version of this book comes to pass is irrelevent; Star Wars: Battles That Changed The Galaxy is an attractive and engrossing read that Star Wars fans of every era should be clamouring to get.
