History and Strategy

History and Strategy
Author: Marc Trachtenberg
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 316
Release: 1991-04-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780691023434

This work is a powerful demonstration of how historical analysis can be brought to bear on the study of strategic issues, and, conversely, how strategic thinking can help drive historical research. Based largely on newly released American archives, History and Strategy focuses on the twenty years following World War II. By bridging the sizable gap between the intellectual world of historians and that of strategists and political scientists, the essays here present a fresh and unified view of how to explore international politics in the nuclear era. The book begins with an overview of strategic thought in America from 1952 through 1966 and ends with a discussion of "making sense" of the nuclear age. Trachtenberg reevaluates the immediate causes of World War I, studies the impact of the shifting nuclear balance on American strategy in the early 1950s, examines the relationship between the nuclearization of NATO and U.S.-West European relations, and looks at the Berlin and the Cuban crises. He shows throughout that there are startling discoveries to be made about events that seem to have been thoroughly investigated.

Strategy

Strategy
Author: Sir Lawrence Freedman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 768
Release: 2013-09-02
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0199349908

Selected as a Financial Times Best Book of 2013 In Strategy: A History, Sir Lawrence Freedman, one of the world's leading authorities on war and international politics, captures the vast history of strategic thinking, in a consistently engaging and insightful account of how strategy came to pervade every aspect of our lives. The range of Freedman's narrative is extraordinary, moving from the surprisingly advanced strategy practiced in primate groups, to the opposing strategies of Achilles and Odysseus in The Iliad, the strategic advice of Sun Tzu and Machiavelli, the great military innovations of Baron Henri de Jomini and Carl von Clausewitz, the grounding of revolutionary strategy in class struggles by Marx, the insights into corporate strategy found in Peter Drucker and Alfred Sloan, and the contributions of the leading social scientists working on strategy today. The core issue at the heart of strategy, the author notes, is whether it is possible to manipulate and shape our environment rather than simply become the victim of forces beyond one's control. Time and again, Freedman demonstrates that the inherent unpredictability of this environment-subject to chance events, the efforts of opponents, the missteps of friends-provides strategy with its challenge and its drama. Armies or corporations or nations rarely move from one predictable state of affairs to another, but instead feel their way through a series of states, each one not quite what was anticipated, requiring a reappraisal of the original strategy, including its ultimate objective. Thus the picture of strategy that emerges in this book is one that is fluid and flexible, governed by the starting point, not the end point. A brilliant overview of the most prominent strategic theories in history, from David's use of deception against Goliath, to the modern use of game theory in economics, this masterful volume sums up a lifetime of reflection on strategy.

Strategy and History

Strategy and History
Author: Colin S. Gray
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 475
Release: 2007-01-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 1134169647

Strategy and History comprises a selection of Professor Gray's key contributions to strategic debate over the past thirty years. These essays have been selected both because they had significant messages for contemporary controversies, and because they have some continuing relevance for today and the future. Each essay in this book is really about strategy in the modern world, and reflects the many dimensions of this complex subject. This book covers a wide range of subjects and historical events, but there are key issues covered throughout: being strategic the consequences of actions a respect for Clausewitz’s theory of war historical dependency the importance of geography being critical of enthusiasm for technology over human factors the primacy of politics. This important publication provides an invaluable insight into the development of strategic studies over the past 30 years from one of the world's leading theorists and practitioners of the subject. The book will be of great interest to all students and analysts of strategy and international studies.

Lords of Strategy

Lords of Strategy
Author: Walter Kiechel
Publisher: Harvard Business Press
Total Pages: 363
Release: 2010-03-03
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1422157318

Imagine, if you can, the world of business - without corporate strategy. Remarkably, fifty years ago that's the way it was. Businesses made plans, certainly, but without understanding the underlying dynamics of competition, costs, and customers. It was like trying to design a large-scale engineering project without knowing the laws of physics. But in the 1960s, four mavericks and their posses instigated a profound shift in thinking that turbocharged business as never before, with implications far beyond what even they imagined. In The Lords of Strategy, renowned business journalist and editor Walter Kiechel tells, for the first time, the story of the four men who invented corporate strategy as we know it and set in motion the modern, multibillion-dollar consulting industry: Bruce Henderson, founder of Boston Consulting Group Bill Bain, creator of Bain & Company Fred Gluck, longtime Managing Director of McKinsey & Company Michael Porter, Harvard Business School professor Providing a window into how to think about strategy today, Kiechel tells their story with novelistic flair. At times inspiring, at times nearly terrifying, this book is a revealing account of how these iconoclasts and the organizations they led revolutionized the way we think about business, changed the very soul of the corporation, and transformed the way we work.

Pure Strategy

Pure Strategy
Author: Everett C. Dolman
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2005
Genre: History
ISBN: 0714684988

A stimulating new inquiry into the fundamental truth of strategy - its purpose, place, utility, and value. This new study is animated by a startling realization: the concept of strategic victory must be summarily discarded. This is not to say that victory has no place in strategy or strategic planning. The outcome of battles and campaigns are variables within the strategist's plan, but victory is a concept that has no meaning there. To the tactical and operational planner, wars are indeed won and lost, and the difference is plain. Success is measurable; failure is obvious. In contrast, the pure strategist understands that war is but one aspect of social and political competition, an ongoing interaction that has no finality. Strategy therefore connects the conduct of war with the intent of politics. It shapes and guides military means in anticipation of a panoply of possible coming events. In the process, strategy changes the context within which events will happen. In this new book we see clearly that the goal of strategy is not to culminate events, to establish finality in the discourse between states, but to continue them; to influence state discourse in such a way that it will go forward on favorable terms. For continue it will. This book will provoke debate and stimulate new thinking across the field and strategic studies.

Military Strategy

Military Strategy
Author: Jeremy Black
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2020-04-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 0300217188

A global account of military strategy, which examines the practices, rather than the theories, of the most significant military figures of the past 400 years Strategy has existed as long as there has been organised conflict. In this new account, Jeremy Black explores the ever-changing relationship between purpose, force, implementation and effectiveness in military strategy and its dramatic impact on the development of the global power system. Taking a 'total' view of strategy, Black looks at leading powers -- notably the United States, China, Britain and Russia -- in the wider context of their competition and their domestic and international strengths. Ranging from France's Ancien Regime and Britain's empire building to present day conflicts in the Middle East, Black devotes particular attention to the strategic practice and decisions of the Kangxi Emperor, Clausewitz, Napoleon and Hitler.

Strategy and Structure

Strategy and Structure
Author: Alfred D. Chandler, Jr.
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 492
Release: 1969-08-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780262530095

This book shows how the seventy largest corporations in America have dealt with a single economic problem: the effective administration of an expanding business. The author summarizes the history of the expansion of the nation's largest industries during the past hundred years and then examines in depth the modern decentralized corporate structure as it was developed independently by four companies—du Pont, General Motors, Standard Oil (New Jersey), and Sears, Roebuck. This 1990 reprint includes a new introduction by the author.

Military Strategy

Military Strategy
Author: John M. Collins
Publisher: Potomac Books, Inc.
Total Pages: 1019
Release: 2011
Genre: History
ISBN: 1597974005

Provides an overview of the principles, theories, policies, and other fundamentals of modern warfare and their applications in the twenty-first century.