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Reading Clausewitx. By Beatrice Heuser. London: Pimlico, 2002. ISBN 0-7126-6484-X. Select bibliography. Notes. Index. Pp. xii, 238. £12.50.
The avowed purpose of Beatrice Heuser's book is to provide guidance for the reader who intends to tackle Carl von Glausewitz's On War, and also to describe the way in which his ideas have had an impact on the development of strategic theory. This is no easy task, particularly as Clausewitz died before he could revise On War to his satisfaction. Moreover, the complex and seemingly contradictory nature of Glausewitz's thought is best understood if one appreciates the milieu within which he lived, particularly the intellectual climate in which the Enlightenment gave way to the age of Romanticism. This context has been lost on many of Glausewitz's readers,...