{"title":"Books by Beatrice Heuser","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780712664844","title":"Reading Clausewitz","description":"\u003cp\u003eClausewitz's \u003ci\u003eOn War\u003c\/i\u003e, first published in 1832, remains the most famous study of the nature and conditions of warfare.  Contemporaries found him 'endearing' or 'totally unpalatable', while later generations called him 'the father of modern strategical study', whose tenets have 'eternal relevance', or dismissed him as outdated. Was it really he who made the discovery that warfare is a continuation of politics? Was he the 'Mahdi of mass and mutual massacre', in part responsible for the mass slaughter of the First World War, as Liddell Hart contended? Can the idea of total war be traced back to him? Complex and often misunderstood, Clausewitz has fascinated and influenced generations of politicians and strategic thinkers. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBeatrice Heuser's study is the first book, not only on how to read Clausewitz, but also on how others have read him - from the Prussian and German masters of warfare of the late nineteenth century  through to the military commanders of the First World War, through Lenin and Mao Zedong to strategists in the nuclear age and of guerrilla warfare. The result is an accessible and comprehensive introduction to the work and influence of the greatest classic on the art of war.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56296672231797,"sku":"9780712664844","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780712664844_94a7a50d-975f-4d0e-b4b8-63760af9bdc6.jpg?v=1786015067"},{"product_id":"9781509566693","title":"Flawed Strategy: Why Smart Leaders Make Bad Decisi ons","description":"Why did Volodymyr Zelensky doubt that Russia was preparing a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022? Why did British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain decide to 'do business with Herr Hitler' in Munich in 1938? And how was it that Israeli elites dismissed intelligence warnings of the Hamas attack in 2023? Had they not learned their lesson from the Egyptian-Syrian attack on Yom Kippur fifty years earlier? In all these cases, smart decision makers misjudged their adversaries, largely because they failed to understand how their enemies' actions and strategies were shaped by different values and beliefs to their own. We may think such beliefs are irrational merely because we do not share them. They may appear confusing and ill judged. But as Beatrice Heuser ably shows in this pithy book, strategy making is a tricky business, marred by bias, irrationality, bureaucratic politics, colliding government interests, and complex procedures and structures. Assessing our adversaries as not only irrational but also illogical is a dangerous game that can lead to flawed and, on occasions, catastrophically bad decisions. This book explains why.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":57685788950901,"sku":"9781509566709","price":15.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":56302332150133,"sku":"9781509566693","price":55.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781509566709.jpg?v=1792598976"},{"product_id":"the-evolution-of-strategy","title":"The Evolution of Strategy","description":"Is there a 'Western way of war' which pursues battles of annihilation and single-minded military victory? Is warfare on a path to ever greater destructive force? This magisterial account answers these questions by tracing the history of Western thinking about strategy - the employment of military force as a political instrument - from antiquity to the present day. Assessing sources from Vegetius to contemporary America, and with a particular focus on strategy since the Napoleonic Wars, Beatrice Heuser explores the evolution of strategic thought, the social institutions, norms and patterns of behaviour within which it operates, the policies that guide it and the cultures that influence it. Ranging across technology and warfare, total warfare and small wars as well as land, sea, air and nuclear warfare, she demonstrates that warfare and strategic thinking have fluctuated wildly in their aims, intensity, limitations and excesses over the past two millennia.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57481629991285,"sku":"9780521155243","price":34.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780521155243.jpg?v=1786089912"},{"product_id":"napoleons-military-maxims","title":"Napoleon's Military Maxims","description":"This classic work is a distillation of the knowledge, intuition and wisdom of one of history's greatest military commanders.   Napoleon's success was built upon practical experience combined with his own study of classical warfare and his natural grasp of the key principles of war. His thoughts and theories on the art of waging war are presented here in the form of accessible and readable maxims.   This edition also features additional contextual commentary by historians David Chandler and Beatrice Heuser, which allows modern readers to compare Napoleon's principles with the experience of war today.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57502270783861,"sku":"9781805000082","price":17.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781805000082.jpg?v=1786781092"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-beatrice-heuser.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}