A History of Military Thought

PART ONE: THE MILITARY SCHOOL OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT; 1. Montecuccoli: The Impact of Proto-Science on Military Theory; 2. The Military Thinkers of the French Enlightenment: The Quest for a General Theory of War; 3. The Military Thinkers of the German 'Aufklarung'; 4. Through the Napoleonic Age; PART TWO: THE GERMAN MOVEMENT, CLAUSEWITZ, AND THE ORIGINS OF THE GERMAN MILITARY SCHOOL; 5. The Reaction Against the Enlightenment: New Perspectives on Military Theory; 6. Clausewitz: Demolishing and Rebuilding the Theoretical Ideal; 7. Clausewitz: The Nature of War; 8. Conclusion; 9. Clausewitz's Final Notes Revisited; PART THREE: THE DEVELOPMENT OF MILITARY THOUGHT; 10. Positivism, Romanticism, and Military Theory 1815-1870; 11. The German Military School: Its World-View and Conception of War 1815-1914; 12. The Cult of the Offensive: The Sources of French Military Doctrine 1871-1914; 13. From Sail to Steam: Naval Theory and the Military Parallel 1882-1914; 14. Marxism, Clausewitz, and Military Theory 1848 to the Nuclear Age; 15. INTRODUCTION: THE 'JANUS FACE' OF FASCISM; 16. J. F. C. Fuller: Positivism, Evolution, Fascism, and Future Warfare; 17. Futurism, Proto-Fascist Italian Culture, and the Sources of Douhetism; 18. German Right-Wing Radicalism, Strategic Adventurism, and Mechanized Warfare; 19. Comparisons and Contrasts (I): American Populism, Progressivism, and Mid-West Technological Modernism; 20. Comparisons and Contrasts (II): Marxism, Modernism, and the Doctrine of 'Deep Battle'; 21. INTRODUCTION; 22. Background: The First World War in Western Consciousness; 23. Theory: The Lmited War, Moderate Peace, and the Strategy of Indirect Approach; 24. Policy: Defence of the West (I): Containment in the 1930s; 25. Policy: Defence of the West II: Hot War-Cold War; 26. Conclusion: 'The Western Way in Warfare', Past and Future; Bibliography; Index

"Probably the most authoritative single volume study of military thought that is currently available, and certainly one of the most accessible. Gat successfully relates a multiplicity of military thinkers to the intellectual environment in which they worked."-- The Historian