On Grand Strategy [Hardcover]

“The best education in grand strategy available in a single volume . . . a book that should be read by every American leader or would-be leader.”—The Wall Street Journal

A master class in strategic thinking, distilled from the legendary program the author has co-taught at Yale for decades

John Lewis Gaddis, the distinguished historian of the Cold War, has for almost two decades co-taught grand strategy at Yale University with his colleagues Charles Hill and Paul Kennedy.  Now, inOn Grand Strategy, Gaddis reflects on what he has learned.  In chapters extending from the ancient world through World War II, Gaddis assesses grand strategic theory and practice in Herodotus, Thucydides, Sun Tzu, Octavian/Augustus, St. Augustine, Machiavelli, Elizabeth I, Philip II, the American Founding Fathers, Clausewitz, Tolstoy, Lincoln, Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Isaiah Berlin. On Grand Strategyapplies the sharp insights and wit readers have come to expect from Gaddis to times, places, and people he’s never written about before.  For anyone interested in the art of leadership,On Grand Strategyis, in every way, a master class.“[T]he best education in grand strategy available in a single volume . . . a long walk with a single, delightful mind . . .On Grand Strategyis a book that should be read by every American leader or would-be leader.” —John Nagl,Wall Street Journal
 
“A remarkably erudite volume…[that] renders nuanced verdicts on an eclectic cohort of thinkers, writers, monarchs and conquerors…Gaddis has indisputably earned the right to plow different fields of historical inquiry, which he does inOn Grand Strategywith self-evident glee and peripatetic curiosity.” —Washington Post

“Thought-provoking…The approach is highly idiosyncratic and the structure lool3œ