Stephen Turnbull is recognised as one of the world's foremost military historians of the medieval and early modern periods. He first rose to prominence as a result of his book published in 1977, The Samurai: A Military History, one of the few hardback books ever produced by Osprey. Since then he has achieved an equal fame in writing about European military subjects and has had 30 books published. He has always tried to concentrate on the less familiar areas of military history, in particular such topics as Korea, Eastern Europe, the Baltic states and the Teutonic Knights.