Eminently readable book with a lot of interesting information. However, what is strange, for Chaffetz is a horse rider himself, there is very little information on the evolution of harnesses, saddles, stirrup and other equipment needed to turn a horse into an indomitable war machine. Peacetime application of horses does not interest him that much.
Chaffetz' numbers of the size of pre-modern armies are taken from contemporary chronicles and are not reliable because chroniclers shamelessly exaggerated the numbers of the opponent and diminished the numbers of their own. For instance, he estimates the size of Mongol hordes as 600,000. But the army of such size in the absence of railroad supply would simply eat their horses first, and then die itself from starvation. In fact, the Mongols divided their troops into corps of 10,000 riders (tumen), each of each traveled by a different road. The next village, which they would plunder -- and they ate only meat considering plant eaters cud chewing animals -- must be located within a length of march supported by slaughtering the village livestock.
