Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Over the last fifty years, strategy and strategic culture have become embedded in the discourse of political scientists and historians of diplomacy and warfare. While the debate goes on, surprisingly little attention has been paid to how contemporaries in previous centuries carried out the functions that are now incorporated in these two powerful terms. Now Jeremy Black has provided a refreshing new look at how meanings behind these terms were understood and employed in the eighteenth century. With his vast knowledge and insights of the period, he is able to take us on a wide-ranging exploration that provides stimulating food for thought for historians of all periods." -Richard Harding, author of The Emergence of Britain's Global Naval Supremacy: The War of 1739-1748 "This is both an overview of eighteenth-century warfare and an interpretation of how war was made; a polemical contribution to a debate on the nature of strategy; and a contribution to global history." -Alan Forrest, author of Napoleon: Life, Legacy, and Image: A Biography
Table of ContentsPreface
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1. The Struggle for Power
2. The Reach for World Empire: Britain, 1700-83
3. The Strategy of the Ancien Régime: France 1700-89
4. The Flow of Ideas
5. The Strategy of Continental Empires
6. The Strategy of the "Barbarians"
7. The Rise of Republican Strategies, 1775-1800
8. Imperial Imaginings, 1783-1800
9. Conclusions
10. Postscript: Strategy and Military History
Selected Further Reading
Index
