Several years ago, my former mentor circulated this book in the lab. Until quite recently, my friends still found me quoting from it while talking about scientific ideas. Now, after reading the book for many times, and studying the characteristics of great mentors around me, I conclude that it's a marvelous book. Anyone who plan to have a bright scientific career should read this book. My only dissatisfaction is the book is so old. I demand a new edition or a sequel! And, I want more examples of such lineage of excellent scientists as described in the book.Surely, it's book that I will share with my student.

While seemingly on a mundane and complicated subject (pharmacology and its researchers), it is an easy read for any layman and very, very interesting (especially on the topic of malaria medications and their discovery and problems)... Very interesting how hitching your star to the right person can make your career...and how pettiness and back-stabbing can be so cruel and counterproductive... A very, very good read for anyone even remotely interested in science...

Karl von Clausewitz's (1780-1831) masterpiece On War has deservedly been translated into most major languages. The Everyman's Library Edition of the work - introduced by Peter Paret - is the perhaps most widely acclaimed English edition.

Long recognized as the classic the strategic principles of armed conflict, the book continue to influence military thinking. On War is an attempt to reach an understanding of the nature of war itself. The Prussian general defines war as violence intended to compel the opponent to fulfill the will of the proponent. Violence is the means; submission of the enemy is the object.

The ultimate goal of war is political - armed combat is the means to a political end, without which war becomes «pointless and devoid of sense». Another key thought is that the total defeat of the adversary is the essence of war. A critique often heard against this strain of thought is that Clausewitz's focus on decisive battle and over strategic maneuver invites bloodbath. This can also serve to illustrate why the book has carried relevance over the centuries. -It focuses on the -how's of war rather than considerations that are bound to be influenced by Zeitgeist.

The book is experiencing a renaissance in the post-Cold War era -reading it may well help to explain the phenomenon of war also in the years to come.

Karl von Clausewitz's (1780-1831) masterpiece On War, has deservedly been translated into most major languages. The Everyman's Library Edition of On War introduced by Peter Paret is the perhaps most widely acclaimed English edition.

Long recognized as the classic the strategic principles of armed conflict, the book continue to influence military thinking. On War is an attempt to reach an understanding of the nature of war itself. The Prussian general defines war as violence intended to compel the opponent to fulfill the will of the proponent. Violence is the means; submission of the enemy is the object.

The ultimate goal of war is political - armed combat is the means to a political end, without which war becomes «pointless and devoid of sense». Another key thought is that the total defeat of the adversary is the essence of war. A critique often heard against this strain of thought is that Clausewitz's focus on decisive battle and over strategic maneuver invites bloodbath.

The book is experiencing a renaissance in the post-Cold War era -reading it may well help to explain the phenomenon of war also in the years to com

I have the Regnery edition- "War, Politics, and Power," but this edition surmising Clausewitz's writings seems more widely available. So I offer my review on his writings and recommend this book. This book was widely disseminated in Red China, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union.

Essentially, this book contains the best writings of the German military theorist. Clauswitz, the Prussian Sun Tzu, effectively brought the concept of total war into acceptability. Gone our the days Antonie Henri Jomini's chilvarious code of conduct and honor- Civilians will not only be subject to attack - they'll bear the brunt of the battle in an age of total war. Several points are made- which are crucial to surmising Clausewitzian theory- 1) "War is the continuation of state policy by other means;" 2) "All war is based on the art of deception;" 3) "No one starts war... without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by the war and how he intends to conduct it;" 4) War is "an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will." 5) "If the enemy is thrown off balance, he must not be given time to recover. Blow after blow must be struck in the same direction: the victor, in other words, must strike with all his strength... by daring to win all, will one really defeat the enemy."

To me this work is valuable in its historical context- and as an ardent student of military history.

This book is a marvelous anachronism! Written early in the age of intercontinental ballistic missiles by the country's foremost civilian expert on military strategy, it is an important document for anyone who wants to understand how strategy for nuclear war evolved. Brodie believed nuclear war was "unthinkable," and, by thinking about the unthinkable, he clearly hoped to provide an intellectual framework for avoiding a catastrophe.

Brodie was originally an academic specialist in military strategy (after leaving academe, he worked for the RAND Corporation), but he was not an elitist: Early in this fascinating book, which was written in 1959, at the dawn of the missile age, Brodie wrote: "Any real expansion of strategic thought to embrace the wholly new circumstances which nuclear weapons have produced will therefore have to be developed largely within the military guild itself." Indeed, Brodie looked to a military officer for basic strategic concepts. According to Brodie, Italian Brigadier General Giulio Douhet "possessed the largest and most original mind that this far addressed itself to the theory of air power." Brodie explained: "In its broad outline, Douhet's...basic argument [was] twofold: first, the nature of air power requires that 'command of the air' be won by aggressive bombing action rather than by aerial fighting, and second, an air force which achieves command thereby ensures victory all down the line." According to Brodie, "Douhet's constant refrain" that "[t]he only way to destroy an enemy air force is to strike at its own bases, and the only force that can accomplish such destruction is a bomber force." In Brodie's view, Douhet was totally committed to the aerial offensive, and "Douhet's reasoning required him to place an enormous premium upon hitting first with all one's might." According to Brodie, "[a]ir power had a mighty vindication in World War II," although, as Brodie observed, during World War II, "[t]he battle of Britain resulted in an outright victory for the defense." According to Brodie, "strategic bombing brought the German war economy to the point of collapse," but that result came "too late to develop its full potential effects on the ground and naval campaigns." According to Brodie: "It was the collapse of transportation which caused the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, to state...[that] 'the German armies, completely bereft of ammunition and of motive power, would almost certainly have had to cease fighting by June or July'" of 1945. Nevertheless, Brodie wrote, the Allies' "bombing of [German] cities turned out to be a great waste of time...The bombing of German cities cost the Germans much in production and more in the diversion of military resources to defense; but we must nevertheless state that no critical shortages in war commodities of any kind are traceable to it." Brodie concluded that the effect of bombing German cities was "indecisive." He also asserted: "It is difficult to tell just what proportion of the bombs dropped on Germany in World War II was deliberately aimed at German morale, but it was unquestionably very large." According to Brodie: "The huge share of Allied bombs spent in attack on German morale failed to achieve any important end results" because "people accustomed to responding to authority - and all peoples are, in modestly varying degrees - will continue to respond even under very great physical stress." According to Brodie: "The strategic air offensive against Japan was remarkably different from that against Germany in character as well as result. It was much more concentrated in time, and had the benefit of the more advanced technology than available. Japan was more urbanized than Germany, its cities were more vulnerable to fire, and its active defenses at the time of the campaign were of a lower orders of effectiveness, being mostly confined to antiaircraft guns. Thus, more was accomplished with fewer bombs. Only 160,800 tons of bombs were dropped on the home islands of Japan, compared to 1,360,000 dropped within the borders of Germany." After providing historical background, Brodie proceeded to discuss nuclear war: "Under atomic weapons, even ignoring the effects of fallout, the proportion of persons exposed to risk in cities would be greater, the incidence of casualties and of lost homes would be multiplied, and the disorganizing effects upon the surrounding countrysides would be immeasurably more immediate and direct." In Brodie's view, with the advent of nuclear weapons the entire value of past military experience as a guide to the future was called into question. For instance, according to Brodie: "Since a large thermonuclear bomb exploded over a city would as a rule effectively eliminate all its industrial activities, there is hardly much point in asking which industries should be hit and in what order, or which particular facilities within any industry." According to Brodie: "Warning is the key to the entire defense problem." Brodie explained: "The old adage that every new offensive development inevitably provokes the development of a suitable defense is hard to justify historically, and it is certainly excessively optimistic for the nuclear era. One should hesitate especially to apply it to the ballistic missile." Over 40 years ago, Brodie presciently wrote: "A system with enough built-in sensitivity to react promptly to any real attack must be sensitive enough to respond also to false alarms or deliberate enemy 'spoofing.'" According to Brodie: "The enormous destructiveness of each delivered nuclear weapon is what makes the ultimate prospects for the defense, especially for active defense, appear so hopeless. With multi-megaton weapons, one on target is already appalling - assuming the target to be a large city - and the prospect of twenty or thirty on similar targets is horrendous."

Written over 40 years ago, this study obviously is now dated, but it remains a cautionary tale. If the United States and the Soviet Union had gone to war in October 1962 during the Cuban missile crisis, according to Brodie's prediction of three years earlier, "the minimum of expected fatalities in an enemy strategic bombing attack probably has to be reckoned in tens of millions."

We used this book in a class I took called "International Security Policy". It provides an excellent analysis of War as an extension of Politics. It's fairly easy to understand, yet advanced enough for the upperclassmen and political scientists to glean some new knowledge.