- Paperback: 904 pages
- Publisher: Oxford University Press (Nov 1 2001)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0199247625
- ISBN-13: 978-0199247622
- Product Dimensions: 21.3 x 13.7 x 5.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 1.1 Kg
- Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #408,316 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
Review from other book by this author 'brilliant synthesis of moden military and naval analysis...highly recommended.'The Historian
Azar Gat has certainly done much to rescue Liddell Hart from the clutches of his recent critics. His book, like its predecessors, is a formidable achievement./ Brian Holden Reid, TLS, 21/05/99.
`Gat presents a great deal of historical and theoretical material in a relatively brief compass.' Foreign Affairs
`but it is not on the military side of its university that Dr Gat operates, it is in the departments of history and political science ... And it is this which gives his work its depth and value ... he is above all a historian of ideas ... he has written a very good book ... The historiographical passages and bibliographical footnotes are rich and useful, the general-historical foundations of the work are admirably solid, and the exposition flows from cover to cover in a powerful and compelling stream.' Times Literary Supplement
'The present volume ... extends and amplifies the basic argument that Gat developed in his earlier book on The Origins of Miltary Thought from the Enlightenment to Clausewitz, by far the most frequently cited work in the notes to this one. His approach has the merit of simplicity, and those who found the first volume convincing will find little to complain about here.' Daniel Moran, United States Naval War College, The Journal of Military History
'In this most welcome sequel he extends his study to cover the whole of the period from the Napoleonic era to the First World War. A brief review can do scant justice to the quality of this book. Its erudition is matched by the clarity of its presentation and above all the originality of its concepts.' Michael Howard, War in History 1994
`Gat's book must be lauded for the attempt it makes to remedy one of the great omisssions in the historiography of strategic theory. An especially worthwhile result of Gat's approach is the fundamental criticisms it allows Gat to make of the popular interpretation of pre-First World War French miltary thought, ... the second important contribution of Gat's book is to show that the 19th-century European military had a coherent, convincing, and applicable view of war.' Security Studies
`a thouroughly researched, felicitously composed ... work that ... makes a very important point and deserves close attention from students of military thought.' Harold R. Winton, The Journal of Military History, Vol.64, No.3.
Azar Gat has certainly done much to rescue Liddell Hart from the clutches of his recent critics. His book, like its predecessors, is a formidable achievement./ Brian Holden Reid, TLS, 21/05/99.
`Gat presents a great deal of historical and theoretical material in a relatively brief compass.' Foreign Affairs
`but it is not on the military side of its university that Dr Gat operates, it is in the departments of history and political science ... And it is this which gives his work its depth and value ... he is above all a historian of ideas ... he has written a very good book ... The historiographical passages and bibliographical footnotes are rich and useful, the general-historical foundations of the work are admirably solid, and the exposition flows from cover to cover in a powerful and compelling stream.' Times Literary Supplement
'The present volume ... extends and amplifies the basic argument that Gat developed in his earlier book on The Origins of Miltary Thought from the Enlightenment to Clausewitz, by far the most frequently cited work in the notes to this one. His approach has the merit of simplicity, and those who found the first volume convincing will find little to complain about here.' Daniel Moran, United States Naval War College, The Journal of Military History
'In this most welcome sequel he extends his study to cover the whole of the period from the Napoleonic era to the First World War. A brief review can do scant justice to the quality of this book. Its erudition is matched by the clarity of its presentation and above all the originality of its concepts.' Michael Howard, War in History 1994
`Gat's book must be lauded for the attempt it makes to remedy one of the great omisssions in the historiography of strategic theory. An especially worthwhile result of Gat's approach is the fundamental criticisms it allows Gat to make of the popular interpretation of pre-First World War French miltary thought, ... the second important contribution of Gat's book is to show that the 19th-century European military had a coherent, convincing, and applicable view of war.' Security Studies
`a thouroughly researched, felicitously composed ... work that ... makes a very important point and deserves close attention from students of military thought.' Harold R. Winton, The Journal of Military History, Vol.64, No.3.
Product Description
From the ideas of Clausewitz to contemporary doctrines of containment and cold war, this is a definitive history of modern military thought. A one-volume collection of Azar Gat's acclaimed trilogy, it traces the quest for a general theory of war from its origins in the Enlightenment. Beginning with a provocative critique of Clausewitz's classic work On War, the author unravels the endemic difficulties in Clausewitz's work that have baffled scholars for so long, clearly explaining the development of his ideas against the background of the Napoleonic revolution in war and the Romantic critique of the Enlightenment. He continues the story through the strategic ideas of the Prussian-German military school during the nineteenth century, the factors that shaped the 'cult of the offensive' in the French Army before the First World War, and the competing doctrines which dominated naval warfare during the ages of sail and steam. In the final part of the trilogy, he shows how theories of mechanized war emerged throughout the industrial world in the first decades of the twentieth century and explains why their leading exponents were associated with fascism. Drastically re-evaluating B.H. Liddell Hart's contribution to strategic theory, the author argues that in the wake of the trauma of the First World War, and in response to the Axis challenge, Liddell Hart developed the doctrine of containment and cold war long before the advent of nuclear weapons. He reveals Liddell Hart as a pioneer of the modern western liberal way in warfare which is still with us today.
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First Sentence
The idea that war could be studied systematically by historical observation, by the selection of successful forms of organization, and by the imitation of stratagems emerged in antiquity, and was powerfully revived-with a strong practical tendency-in the Renaissance. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
The idea that war could be studied systematically by historical observation, by the selection of successful forms of organization, and by the imitation of stratagems emerged in antiquity, and was powerfully revived-with a strong practical tendency-in the Renaissance. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing survey of military thought,
By
This review is from: A History of Military Thought: From the Enlightenment to the Cold War (Paperback)
This is the one-volume collection of Azar Gat's trilogy on military thought. He explores thinking about war and strategy ranging from Machiavelli to the 1950s, relating the ideas to their cultural and historical contexts. As he writes, "New ideas emerge during periods of revolutionary change or at times of crisis, in response to great historical challenges." The great strategic thinkers Jomini and Clausewitz developed their revolutionary ideas in response to the French Revolution. Gat argues that World War One's massive slaughter forced a paradigm shift from Clausewitz's ideas to the new idea of limited war. But Julian Corbett, limited war's greatest theorist, first published his ideas before 1914. Corbett argued, like Clausewitz, that wars were means to an end, continuations of policy. But he showed that wars could take many forms, with differing limits, depending on their political aims. Gat exaggerates the importance of J. F. C. Fuller in the interwar period. Fuller plagiarised Ernest Swinton, who first proposed using tanks offensively in numbers to achieve breakthrough. Fuller fantasised that tanks alone could win wars, without infantry and combined arms. Gat also over praises Basil Liddell Hart, who idealised limited war, just part of Britain's military experiences. In the 1930s, Hart predicted that wars would become more humane and rational: World War Two was the most destructive war in history. In this war, the greatest test of Britain's survival as an independent and sovereign nation, Fuller and Hart encouraged Hitler to attack the Soviet Union. Hart opposed the Allies' policy of total war against Hitler, and called for Britain to collaborate with Hitler. Hart claimed that victory was unattainable and that fighting Hitler would 'only lead to mutual suicide, and the collapse of civilisation'. Gat asserts that Hart pioneered a 'Western way' of warfare, of limited war, containment and economic coercion, based on the reactionary dreams of European and World Federation. But there is no such 'Western way': Western ruling classes waged all sorts of wars against national liberation struggles, annihilatory against Korea, Algeria and Vietnam, relatively limited against Malaya and Kenya.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
3.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews) 5 of 7 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Book!,
By Dwight Charles - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: A History of Military Thought: From the Enlightenment to the Cold War (Paperback)
As a survey of military thought from the Enlightenment up to the Cold War, I found Professor Gat's book to be comprehensive, thought-provoking, well researched, and well written. In particular the effect of established opinions on the nature of war and how it should be waged, and the reaction of succeeding generations to these established opinions is very interesting. Specifically, the military theories developed during the Enlightenment and the reaction of military theorists to the victories of Napoleon (such as Clausewitz) were of special interest. As Professor Gat himself remarks, there is a tendency to treat the period before Clausewitz as a kind of intellectual void, during which there was no discussion of the theory and practice of war at all. In fact there was a great deal of controversy on military matters taking place in both France and Germany. Admittedly this is a specialist book, not for everyone. But for anyone interested in this topic, I highly recommend this book.
16 of 29 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing survey of military thought,
By William Podmore - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: A History of Military Thought: From the Enlightenment to the Cold War (Paperback)
This is the one-volume collection of Azar Gat's trilogy on military thought. He explores thinking about war and strategy ranging from Machiavelli to the 1950s, relating the ideas to their cultural and historical contexts. As he writes, "New ideas emerge during periods of revolutionary change or at times of crisis, in response to great historical challenges." The great strategic thinkers Jomini and Clausewitz developed their revolutionary ideas in response to the French Revolution. Gat argues that World War One's massive slaughter forced a paradigm shift from Clausewitz's ideas to the new idea of limited war. But Julian Corbett, limited war's greatest theorist, first published his ideas before 1914. Corbett argued, like Clausewitz, that wars were means to an end, continuations of policy. But he showed that wars could take many forms, with differing limits, depending on their political aims. Gat exaggerates the importance of J. F. C. Fuller in the interwar period. Fuller plagiarised Ernest Swinton, who first proposed using tanks offensively in numbers to achieve breakthrough. Fuller fantasised that tanks alone could win wars, without infantry and combined arms. Gat also over praises Basil Liddell Hart, who idealised limited war, just part of Britain's military experiences. In the 1930s, Hart predicted that wars would become more humane and rational: World War Two was the most destructive war in history. In this war, the greatest test of Britain's survival as an independent and sovereign nation, Fuller and Hart encouraged Hitler to attack the Soviet Union. Hart opposed the Allies' policy of total war against Hitler, and called for Britain to collaborate with Hitler. Hart claimed that victory was unattainable and that fighting Hitler would `only lead to mutual suicide, and the collapse of civilisation'. Gat asserts that Hart pioneered a `Western way' of warfare, of limited war, containment and economic coercion, based on the reactionary dreams of European and World Federation. But there is no such `Western way': Western ruling classes waged all sorts of wars against national liberation struggles, annihilatory against Korea, Algeria and Vietnam, relatively limited against Malaya and Kenya. |
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