Deighton's gripping tales range from  Hannibal's march on Rome--when strange, moving objects terrorize the troops of one of the toughest, most skilful armies in history--to a belittled Civil War general's efforts to get his men to face the Confederate army; to the dawn skies above an artillery-blasted French battle-line where a dogfight unfolds; to Vietnam, where two lost American soldiers stumble across an abandoned military airfield.

Each tale in Declarations of War explores the effects of war upon man's character, how it pushes him to act in a dehumanized, machine-like, and sometimes extraordiary way that can lead to both good and ill. Deighton portrays human conflict through a series of devastating experiences and shows how great deeds are often but the smallest thread in the large fabric of war.