An all-new episode of Professor Darryl Dee’s Great Battles in History podcast has been released. In the inaugural episode, Professor Dee examined the Battle of Thermopylae, its origins and its legacy, now he sets his sights on The Battle of Cannae:
On August 2, 216 BCE, at Cannae in southern Italy, the Carthaginian warlord Hannibal Barca and his army of veteran African, Spanish, and Gallic mercenaries destroyed the largest force ever fielded by the Roman Republic. Since then, Cannae has been studied by scholars and soldiers as a tactical masterpiece—a perfect battle. It remains a byword for slaughter, for the total annihilation of an army. For Hannibal, Cannae confirmed that he was one of the greatest captains in military history. It also brought him to the brink of final triumph over Rome. For the Roman Republic, Cannae was its darkest hour.
Darryl Dee is an Associate Professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, ON. He is interested in 17th- and 18th-century French history, particularly the reign of Louis XIV, the famous Sun King. He is currently working on two research projects. The first examines the uses and abuses of money during the period 1680 to 1726. The second project is a multifaceted analysis of 1709, a year of military, political, economic and ecological crises in France. He has appeared as a guest on the LCMSDS’s On War & Society podcast, where he discussed his research and the myth of decisive battles.