BATTLE STATIONS

A superficial sweep past changing fashions in defensive walls, from Ancient Egypt to the Strategic Defense Initiative, filled out with glances at siege engines, body armor and tanks. Except for the 19th-century Martello Towers, which were built throughout the British Empire as coastal defenses, the examples are covered in more accurate (no, the Great Wall of China is not the only human artifact visible from space, nor is SDI a dead concept) detail elsewhere. Moreover, the generic painted illustrations aren’t going to draw or keep readers familiar with the likes of Stephen Biesty’s Castles (2004) for long. Dispensable. (Nonfiction. 9-11)