The authors examine the natures of military revolutions and RMA (a very hot topic that has arguably produced more hot air than substance) and provide a number of case studies examining the issues and testing the authors' views through history.

The case studies are;

- The English in the 14th century
- 17th century France
- The French Revolution
- The American Civil War
- The Prussian RMA, 1840-1871
- The Battlefleet Revolution
- The First World War
- Blitzkrieg 1940

The various case studies are backed up by an extremely satisfying introduction and a thorough, well argued conclusion which fires one or two shots across the bows of those residents of the Pentagon who may be suffering from technology-centric tunnel vision. The authors (very distinguished bunch, it should be said) warn against the idea that Clausewitzian truths regarding such issues as friction can be discounted thanks to the wonders of technology and indeed make clear that they are as important as ever.

The various case studies work extremely well as concise stand-alone works on their various historical periods, even if RMA is not your hot topic. Especially good are the chapters on the English in the 14th century and on the Battlefleet Revolution (and the inner workings of the Imperial German Navy and the Royal Navy during this period).

This is a well written, interesting book which should annoy all the right people.

This is the only serious book I have been able to find that addresses revolutions in military affairs with useful case studies, a specific focus on whether asymmetric advantages do or do not result, and a very satisfactory executive conclusion. This book is strongly recommended for both military professionals, and the executive and congressional authorities who persist in sharing the fiction that technology is of itself an asymmetric advantage.

It merits emphasis that the author's first conclusion, spanning a diversity of case studies, is that technology may be a catalyst but it rarely drives a revolution in military affairs--concepts are revolutionary, it is ideas that break out of the box.

Their second conclusion is both counter-intuitive (but based on case studies) and in perfect alignment with Peter Drucker's conclusions on successful entrepreneurship: the best revolutions are incremental (evolutionary) and based on solutions to actual opponents and actual conditions, rather than hypothetical and delusional scenarios of what we think the future will bring us. In this the authors mesh well with Andrew Gordon's masterpiece on the rules of the game and Jutland: we may be best drawing down on our investments in peacetime, emphasizing the education of our future warfighters, and then be prepared for massive rapid agile investments in scaling up experimental initiatives as they prove successful in actual battle.

The book is noteworthy for its assault on fictional scenarios and its emphasis on realism in planning--especially valuable is the authors' staunch insistence that only honesty, open discussion among all ranks, and the wide dissemination of lessons learned, will lead to improvements.

Finally, the authors are in whole-hearted agreement with Colin Gray, author of Modern Strategy, in stating out-right that revolutions in military affairs are not a substitute for strategy as so often assumed by utopian planners, but merely an operational or tactical means.

This is a brilliant, carefully documented work that should scare the daylights out of every taxpayer--it is nothing short of an indictment of our entire current approach to military spending and organization. As the author's quaintly note in their understated way, in the last paragraph of the book, "the present trend is far from promising, as the American government and armed forces procure enormous arsenals only distantly related to specific strategic needs and operational and tactical employment concepts, while continu[ing], in the immortal words of Kiffin Rockwell, a pilot in the legendary First World War Lafayette Escadrille, to 'fly along, blissfully ignorant, hoping for the best.'"

Lest the above be greeted with some skepticism, let us note the 26 October 2001 award of $200 billion to Lockheed for the new Joint Strike Fighter calls into serious question whether the leadership in the Pentagon understands the real world--the real world conflicts of today--all 282 of them (counting 178 internal conflicts) will require the Joint Strike Fighter only 10% of the time--the other 90% of our challenges demand capabilities and insights the Pentagon is not only not capable of fielding, it simply refuses to consider them to be "real war." Omar Bin Laden beat the Pentagon on 11 September 2001, and he (and others who follow in his footsteps) will continue to do so until we find a military leadership that can lead a real-world revolution in military affairs.... rather than a continuing fantasy in which the military-industrial complex lives on regardless of how many homeland attacks we suffer.

It is so refreshing to see this long studied subject being given a fresh viewpoint from someone who was actually there.

Recommeded for any serious student of the Civil War.

As has been stated, the essays span a considerable time period, though there is perhaps (definitely in fact) a weighting towards 20th century strategy. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is probably dependant upon the reader's personal taste but I didn't have a problem with it.

The quality of the essays is invariably of a very high quality and the contributors are leaders in the field of Strategic Studies (Colin Gray, Donald Kagan, Eliot Cohen, the late Michael Handel, Williamson Murray, Macgregor Knox etc). Standout chapters include Holger Herwig's withering analysis of Imperial German strategy in the post-Bismarck period and (by virtue both of quality and of the fact that it tackles a relatively obscure and much neglected power's policy) Brian Sullivan's chapter on Italian grand strategy in the build-up to the First World War.

The chapters (excluding the excellent and extensive introduction and conclusion) cover the following periods;

- Athenian Strategy in The Peloponnesian Wars
- Roman Strategy against Carthage
- Chinese Strategy from the 14th to the 17th centuries
- Spanish Strategy under Philip II
- English Strategy, 1558-1713
- French Strategy under Louis XIV
- The United States, 1783-1865
- Prussia-Germany 1871-1918
- British Strategy, 1890-1918
- Italian Strategy, 1882-1922
- Germany, 1918-1945
- British Strategy, 1918-1945
- U.S. Strategy, 1920-1945
- French Strategy in the inter-war period
- Soviet Strategy, 1917-1945
- Israeli Strategy
- U.S. Nuclear Strategy

Aside from the fact that the quality of the chapters is of a very high standard, the great virtue of this book is the way in which it looks into the way nations have made strategy, rather than dealing with specific strategic theories or trying to provide a guide on how strategy should be made (lessons drawn from history aside). It illustrates clearly the frustrations, the balancing of interests, the difficulty in seeing the big picture, the weighing up of ends and means and the FRICTION that plagues policymakers when they put the books away and actually have to make the magic happen.

This book should be read by anybody with a serious interest in Strategic/War Studies. It's a little gem. At over 600 pages, you get your money's worth too.

Lawrence made his translation with an eye for the details and color of the text. He claimed that his experiences in the war in Arabia helped him to understand the writer of the Odyssey, and I think this did aid him in his approach to his translation. The introduction to this printing of Lawrence's translation provides an interesting comparison to another widely used prose rendering of the Odyssey, and one can instantly discover how much more vivid and faithful Lawrence is to the original. So, Lawrence's Odyssey is a translation I will return to in my future reading of this classic tale.

The introduction to THE BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC 1939-1943 gives a good account of the state of U.S. Navy preparedness between the two World Wars. The appencices help the reader to appreciate the relative strength of the combatants. It is important to realize that the Navy was already making its weight felt in various parts of the world before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The United States Navy was forced into this situation by the rapidly evolving predicament of Great Britain and her allies. The Nazis had overrun Greece and Crete and had put Russia deep in a hole. It appeared possible that Germany and Italy would soon control all three entrances of the Mediterranean - The Straits, The Dardanelles and the Suez Canal. Much of this book describes in great detail how the tide of war turned from this low beginning to a much brighter picture for the Allies by April 1943. By then Germany had lost the strategic initiative when it failed to capture Stalingrad. The German Black Sea Fleet was fighting a losing battle and Germany was forced to evacuate its remaining troops from North Africa. In addition, the Allies were organizing an invasion of the European Continent while Japan was on the defensive in the Pacific.

The story is a wide-ranging one because the area involved in the Battle of the Atlantic is so vast. At one end we have the supply run to North Russia to give that beleagured country the essential means to continue to fight. At the other end there is the important contribution of Brazil to the ultimate victory by the Allies. In between there is the very dangerous threat of the German submarine offensive and our paralyzingly slow response to it. The tragedy of our substantial merchant marine losses in the early part of hostilities is described in some detail by Morison but the explanation of exactly how this situation developed is one of the more disappointing aspects of the book. The responsibility for the calamity is still being debated and explored. Morison does not go much below the surface in his account of this sordid affair although the author is not necessarily an unqualified fan of Admiral Ernest J. King.

THE BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC 1939-1943 is a very detailed historical record in spite of the book's few shortcomings. My respect for Samuel Eliot Morison is increased by reading it and I highly recommend the volume to anyone interested in the history of WWII.