The Hannibalic War was a turning point in the history of the Mediterranean world but, although its perennial fascination has led to the publication of an ever-increasing number of learned studies, there has been no scholarly account in English solely devoted to the war itself since Arnold's The Second Punic War published in 1886. The present work attempts to gather together fruit of research in many detailed fields, and in particular, by an analysis of the ancient sources, to ascertain what actually happened in those momentous eighteen years during which the struggle for the mastery of the Mediterranean was fought out in Italy, France, Spain, Greece and North Africa in a sense the first "world war" in history.