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“Tanks are like dinner jackets”, an Australian general once commented, “you don’t need them very often, but when you do, nothing else will do.”

An authoritative history of the tank and the remarkable individuals who designed them and fought in them, from a former officer and best-selling historian

Tanks are the ultimate embodiment of industrial age warfare. In the popular imagination, they represent both a terrifying beast of destruction and a potent symbol of liberation.

The technology behind these war machines has evolved relentlessly, and yet the coming of the information age has led many to predict that drones, missiles, and Artificial Intelligence have made the tank obsolete. Time and again, however, tanks have continued to shape – and be shaped by -- battles around the world, from their introduction in 1916, through the Second World War and tank-on-tank fights in 1990s Iraq, to the current conflict in Ukraine.

In TANK, best-selling historian and former officer in the Royal Tank Regiment Mark Urban draws on wide-ranging accounts from soldiers, designers, and politicians, from Winston Churchill to Volodymyr Zelensky, to tell the remarkable story of one of the most important developments in military history. Through the ten most important vehicles ever made, Urban chronicles the incredible advances in tank technology – starting with the Mark IV, the first British tank to be used in large numbers in WW1, and following the story through the T-34 and Tiger to the M1 Abrams, a product of huge American Cold War investment that is still used to this day.

Officially supported by The Tank Museum and using never-before-seen archival sources, interviews and declassified documents, this is a fascinating history of the vehicle that changed conflict forever.

© Mark Urban 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025