As the media continues to display photos of American soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners, we are reminded that war is filled with unspeakable horrors. History, as always, holds many sobering lessons.

For those who require a refresher course, Nicholas Hobbes' Essential Militaria: Facts, Legends and Curiosities about Warfare through the Ages (Grove Press, $15) is an informative, easy-to-read wake-up call.

The book, slotted for June release, is a slim compendium of war trivia - everything from the war wounds sustained by Alexander the Great (including, ugh, a cleaver slash to the head) to 10 of the all-time bloodiest battles. The information is sometimes shocking, sometimes entertaining.

But in light of recent controversies, some of the more interesting pages will certainly be the ones devoted to wartime abuses.

Consider the treatment of prisoners through the years:

• In 1199, Richard the Lionheart requested, in a dying wish, that the crossbowman who shot him "should be spared and given a sum of money. Richard's mercenary captain Mercadier instead had the man flayed alive and impaled."

• In 1014, Byzantine emperor Basil II, upon his victory at the battle of Balathista, blinded his 15,000 prisoners, "leaving one man in every hundred with one good eye so that he could lead his comrades home."

• In 71 B.C., after the slave revolt of Spartacus, the Romans crucified 6,000 captured slaves "as a warning to others."

As if those scenarios aren't disturbing enough, Hobbes reminds us that warriors have used biological weapons long before powdered anthrax was being sent through the U.S. mail.

In 1485, the Spanish supplied the French wine laced with lepers' blood. In the 5th century B.C., Scythian archers dipped their arrows in animal dung, so that the wounds they inflicted would become infected. And in 1940, Japanese planes dropped plague-infected fleas over China and Manchuria, causing an epidemic.

Hobbes' book is a fast-read reminder that war inevitably brings atrocities. Mercifully for the faint of heart, they haven't always been broadcast on the evening news.

Patti Thorn, books editor