Peter Paret – författare

Originally published in 1976, Clausewitz and the State presents a comprehensive analysis of one of the significant thinkers of modern Europe. Peter Paret combines social and military history and psychological interpretation with a study of Clausewitz''s military theories and of his unduly neglected historical and political writing. This timely new edition includes a preface which allows Paret to recount the past thirty years of discussion on Clausewitz and respond to critics. A companion volume to Clausewitz''s On War, this book is indispensable to anyone interested in Clausewitz and his theories, and their proper historical context.

These essays provide an authoritative introduction to Carl von Clausewitz and enlarge the history of war by joining it to the history of ideas and institutions and linking it with intellectual biography.

The compelling story of the military campaign that changed how we think about warResponding to the enemy''s innovation in war presents problems to soldiers and societies of all times. This book traces Napoleon''s victory over Prussia in 1806 and Prussia''s effort to recover from defeat to show how in one particular historical episode operational analyses together with institutional and political decisions eventually turned defeat to victory.The author moves from a comparative study of French and Prussian forces to campaign narrative and strategic analysis. He examines processes of change in institutions and doctrine, as well as their dependence on social and political developments, and interprets works of art and literature as indicators of popular and elite attitudes toward war, which influence the conduct of war and the kind and extent of military innovation. In the concluding chapter he addresses the impact of 1806 on two men who fought on opposing sides in the campaign and sought a new theoretical understanding of war—Henri Jomini and Carl von Clausewitz.Fields of history that are often kept separate are brought together in this book, which seeks to replicate the links between different areas of thought and action as they exist in reality and shape events.

"Authoritative and convincing."—New York Times Book ReviewThe classic reference on the theory and practice of warThe essays in this volume analyze war, its strategic characterisitics, and its political and social functions over the past five centuries. The diversity of its themes and the broad perspectives applied to them make the book a work of general history as much as a history of the theory and practice of war from the Renaissance to the present. Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age takes the first part of its title from an earlier collection of essays that became a classic of historical scholarship. Three essays are repinted from the earlier book while four others have been extensively revised. The rest—twenty-two essays—are new.The subjects addressed range from major theorists and political and military leaders to impersonal forces. Machiavelli, Clausewitz, and Marx and Engels are discussed, as are Napoleon, Churchill, and Mao. Other essays trace the interaction of theory and experience over generations—the evolution of American strategy, for instance, or the emergence of revolutionary war in the modern world. Still others analyze the strategy of particular conflicts—the First and Second World Wars—or the relationship between technology, policy, and war in the nuclear age. Whatever its theme, each essay places the specifics of military thought and action in their political, social, and economic environment. Together, the contributors have produced a book that reinterprets and illuminates war, one of the most powerful forces in history and one that cannot be controlled in the future without an understanding of its past.

Anything but a detached theorist, Clausewitz was as fully engaged in the intellectual and cultural currents of his time as in its political and military conflicts. Late-eighteenth century thought helped shape the analytic methods he developed for the study of war. The essays in this volume follow his career in a complex military society, together with that of other students of war, both friends and rivals, providing a broad perspective that leads to significant documents so far unknown or ignored. They add to our understanding of Clausewitz’s early ideas and their expansion into a comprehensive theory that continues to challenge our thinking about war today.