John Pike is a military historian, economist and lawyer, as General Legal Counsel for a company listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange. He graduated in Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) at Oxford. After a career as an international banker, economist and asset manager, he was called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 2004. As a barrister, he specialised in banking, commercial law, anti-trust law and fraud. Working in Asia, he participated as a special adviser in defence of Pol Pot’s deputy at the UN Khmer Rouge war crimes trials in Phnom Penh. He has also advised the governments in the governments of various countries in Asia and North America on matters in including the law on criminal cartels, fraud, shipping, grand strategy and foreign aid programs. In 2005, he published with Sir Jeremy Lever QC the leading work on the criminal law of price fixing cartels. As a military historian he has a deep knowledge of war in all aspects from grand strategy to battlefield tactics and weaponry, in the context of international relations, law and economics, its social and cultural effects on society and even individuals - war is a personal story. This the second in a series of books on the Thirty Years War period..