Highly recommended.

Adrian Goldsworthy

A timely look at the history of war, geography, and myth-making, told through the fascinating story of one of the world's most recurrent battlefields.

Douglas Boin

A survey spanning millennia of a pass that, as the authors have brilliantly demonstrated, is as well fitted to host battles as any corner of the globe.

Tom Holland

In The Killing Ground Myke Cole and Michael Livingstone combine their proven talents as military historians to examine why the long, narrow stretch of land called Thermopylae in Greece was the site of twenty-seven battles that occurred there over 2,500 years. Their myth busting account of the legendary battle of 480 BC is a tour de force!

Lindsay Powell, author of 'Augustus at War: The Struggle for the Pax Augusta'

The ancient Spartans really were one of a kind. As was – and is – the battleground (intellectual as well as topographical) of Thermopylae – as Cole and Livingston have so valiantly demonstrated.

History Today

Although not the final word on the most famous battle of Thermopylae, this book provides almost the only word on many of the other actions fought there and should provide any reader, academic or generalist, much to ponder.

History of War