The Penguin Podcast is back! Listen Now
On Grand Strategy

On Grand Strategy

Summary

'A training manual for our troubled times ... It makes sense of our world, but is also capable of beautifully crafted pithy historical judgements. ... It is a book that cares about liberty, choice and a moral compass, that warns against hubris' Roger Boyes, The Times

John Lewis Gaddis, the distinguished historian and acclaimed author of The Cold War, has for almost two decades co-taught the grand strategy seminar at Yale University with his colleagues Charles Hill and Paul Kennedy. Now, in On Grand Strategy, Gaddis reflects with insight and wit on what he has learned.

In chapters extending from the ancient world through World War II, Gaddis assesses grand strategic theory and practice in Herodotus, Thucydides, Sun Tzu, Octavian/Augustus, Saint Augustine, Machiavelli,Elizabeth I, Philip II, the American Founding Fathers, Clausewitz, Tolstoy,Lincoln, Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Isaiah Berlin.

'For the past 16 years Gaddis has taught a course on grand strategy to students at Yale University. Reading his book, you wish every university could offer it. Gaddis roves across the centuries, offering advice on subjects from statecraft and warfare to leading a worthwhile life' Phillip Delves Broughton, Evening Standard

Reviews

  • An extraordinary treatise on the need to teach the principles of sound strategy to today's leaders... It makes sense of our world, but is also capable of beautifully crafted pithy historical judgements. ... It is a book that cares about liberty, choice and a moral compass, that warns against the hubris of an angry Bonaparte on the turn in a Russian winter, against leaders who do not listen or learn. A training manual for our troubled times
    Roger Boyes, The Times

About the author

John Lewis Gaddis

John Lewis Gaddis is the Robert A. Lovett Professor of History at Yale University and was the founding director of the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy. His previous books include The United States and the Origins of the Cold War; Strategies of Containment; The Landscape of History; Surprise, Security, and the American Experience; and The Cold War. The New York Times calls him 'the dean of Cold War historians'. He has won two undergraduate teaching awards at Yale and was a 2005 recipient of the National Humanities Medal. His George F. Kennan: An American Life won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Biography.
Learn More

More from this Author

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more