Description
Book SynopsisMany books have been written about strategy, tactics, and great commanders. This is the first book to deal exclusively with the nature of command itself, and to trace its development over two thousand years from ancient Greece to Vietnam.
Trade ReviewOne cannot but admire the author’s excellent discussion of how modern technology has complicated command and the processes of command; of the interaction of this complication with the political complexities of Vietnam; and of the uses and limitations of systems analysis in general, and in Vietnam in particular. -- Trevor Dupuy * Washington Times *
One of the finest and most perceptive military historians writing in English today… Van Creveld has marshaled more than enough historical evidence—and with great depth and richness—to support his conclusions. -- Robert L. Goldich * Armed Forces and Society *
[Van Creveld] provides us with a vivid historical narrative of the significant steps in the evolution of command systems from the Greek period to the Vietnam war: the birth of the nation-state regular army, the rise of the science of military strategy, the advent of new communication technologies, the development of means for mobilization, and the emergence of computer and space technologies. * Ethics *
I can think of few books on military subjects of greater originality and importance than Martin van Creveld’s scholarly and fascinating dissertation on command in war… The subject is examined in depth, supported by a wide historical base, with a perceptive, unprejudiced eye, and the result expressed in clear prose of high literary merit. -- Michael Carver * Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies Journal *
Table of Contents1. Introduction: On Command The Nature of Command The Evolution of Command The Study of Command 2. The Stone Age of Command The Parameters of Strategy The Nonevolution of Staffs The Conduct of Battle Conclusions: Mars Shackled 3. The Revolution in Strategy "The God of War" Inside Imperial Headquarters 1806: The Campaign 1806: The Battle Conclusions: Mars Unshackled 4.
