For 2000 years, Hampshire has been at the heart of the nation’s defences against foreign invasion, as well as being heavily involved in civil conflict. In the front-line during two world wars it has accommodated the infrastructure for training and deploying vast numbers of troops and material, providing a springboard for the D-Day invasion. Much of the county’s military heritage is still represented in the landscape today: Roman forts, medieval castles, fortified manors and moats, Victorian barracks and drill halls, military airfields, anti-invasion defences, radar sites, bunkers and nuclear attack monitoring posts. Defending Hampshire describes these structures put in place to defend Hampshire’s inhabitants against enemies from both home and abroad, and places them in their historical and social context. From the castles and strong-houses of Norman kings and warrior bishops, through the artillery forts of Henry VIII, the homes of the Royal Navy and the British Army, the airfields of the anti-Zeppelin fighters of the Royal Flyng Corps, Royal Naval Air Service and RAF, to the pillboxes of the 1940 defences against invasion, the anti-nuclear defences of the Cold War and beyond. Dr Mike Osborne is a coordinator for the Defence of Britain Project and the author of many books on the defence of Britain. (The History Press)

Mike Osbourne's real interest is 20th century warfare and this really does show with only a couple of chapter on medieval buildings and he explicitly states he focuses on the military aspects of these buildings which much limits the interest of his books.