Content area
Full Text
Strategy: A History By Lawrence Freedman New York: Oxford University Press, 2013 751 pages $34.95
ncyclopedic in scope and inductive in method, Sir Lawrence Freedman's grand volume: Strategy: A History, presents the fruits of a life-long exploration into the meaning and utility of the concept of strategy. In many respects an intellectual voyage of discov- ery, Freedman begins by describing the evolution of strategy through its pre-Napoleonic history and then, in turns, explores its development and use in three distinct provinces: military, revolutionary-political, and business-corporate. In the grand tradition of his British predecessors who wrote during the age of exploration, Freedman casts a perceptive and discerning eye on the territory he surveys. The result is a trove of keen observations and insights owing much for its success to Freedman's lucid and engaging prose.
While acknowledging the word "strategy" did not come into common usage until the early part of the nineteenth century, Freedman takes the view that strategy in the sense of "practical problem-solving" is as old as history (72). He thus begins his excursion (Part I) with observations on the interrelationships bordering communities of chimpanzees; proceeds to review examples of strategy in the Hebrew Bible and the world of Classical Greece; reviews the canonical texts of Sun Tzu and Machiavelli and completes his examination of the origins of strategy with a review of Milton's Paradise Lost. A clear dichotomy emphasized throughout this opening section and one reappraised to good effect in other sections of the book is the difference between strategies based on force and strate- gies based on guile; in other words - strategies of strength or strategies of cunning.1 Subsequently, however, particularly after considering the advent of the levee on masse, Freedman concludes "[o]nce warfare moved to mass armies with complex organizations, there would be limits to what could be achieved by means of guile. The emphasis would be on force" (65).
And so in Part II, "Strategies of Force," the modern history of military strategy is charted beyond way-points recognized by students: decisive battle; wars of annihilation or attrition; maneuver; the indirect approach; deterrence; guerilla warfare; counterinsurgency and a myriad of others. Here, as well, broader concepts such as geopolitics; continental, maritime, naval and air power; and game theory with its...