Content area
Full Text
Reading Clausewitz Beatrice Heuser L12.50, 238 pages Pimlico, 2002 ISBN 0-7126-6484-X
In 1991, after resounding Western victories in the Cold War and Kuwait, and possibly in anticipation of an 'end of history', much of the military-- intellectual world seemed poised to relegate the classical military theorist Carl von Clausewitz to the historical dustbin. Unfortunately, history proved to be an on-going, complex, and rather nasty process - one result being a renewed interest in CLausewitz and his unsurpassed (if still unsatisfying) exploration of the phenomenon of war, On War (Vom Kriege, 1832). At least five substantial books focusing on Clausewitz have appeared in English since 2000. Beatrice Heuser is professor of strategic studies at Kings College, London. In this useful synthesis she summarizes much of the recent scholarship on the context, intent, and reception of Clausewitz's ideas on war, politics, and strategy.
Heuser's objective is to furnish readers with a more-or-less complete overview of Clausewitz, his principal ideas, their difficulties and enduring worth. She provides generally good advice on 'how to read Clausewitz' and tells much of the enlightening - if often unedifying - story of how others have read or misread him.
I was personally a bit piqued by the back-cover copy saying this 'is the first book not only on how to read Clausewitz, but also on how others...