Now in paperback, Hew Strachan tells in engaging and vivid detail the story of the most important treatise on war ever written: a book that has been blamed for the unprecedented death tolls in the First and Second World Wars.
'So clear and comprehensive you might end up giving von Clausewitz's book itself a swerve.' Colin Waters, Sunday Herald
On War by Carl von Clausewitz was first published in Germany after the Napoleonic Wars. One of the most significant treatises on military strategy ever written, it is still prescribed at military academies today. Its description of 'absolute war' and its insistence on the centrality of battle to war have been blamed for the level of destruction involved in both the First and Second World Wars.
Hew Strachan's accessible and readable book challenges the popular misconceptions that surround On War. He dispels the notion that for Clausewitz policy necessarily shapes war, asserting instead that war has its own dynamic and that its reciprocal effects can themselves shape policy. Strachan returns to the very heart of On War to recover its central arguments; in the process challenging the received wisdom about this cornerstone of military strategy.
£8.99
www.groveatlantic.co.uk
978 1 84354 392 3
