This scholarly and original study of military thought during the nineteenth century, continues and expands the themes Azar Gat explored in The Origins of Military Thought. The present volume spans the period from the aftermath of the Napoleonic era to the outbreak of the First World War. Encompassing Prussia/Germany, France, Great Britain, the USA, and the Marxist theory later to gain sway in Russia, it focuses on the wider conceptions of war, strategy, and military theory which dominated the West in this period, and Dr Gat's penetrating analysis uncovers the intellectual assumptions and the picture of the past which underlay military policy and practice.

In this scholarly and original study of military thought during the nineteenth century Azar Gat continues and expands the themes he explored in his previous book, The Origins of Military Thought from the Enlightenment to Clausewitz (Oxford Historical Monographs, 1989). The present volume spans the period from the aftermath of the Napoleonic era to the outbreak of the First World War. Encompassing Prussia/Germany, France, Great Britain, the United States of America and the Marxist theory later to gain sway in Russia, The Development of Military Thought focuses on the wider conceptions of war, strategy, and military theory which dominated the West in this period. Dr. Gat's penetrating analysis uncovers the intellectual assumptions and picture of the past which underlay military policy and practice.

`Gat's book must be lauded for the attempt it makes to remedy one of the great omisssions in the historiography of strategic theory. An especially worthwhile result of Gat's approach is the fundamental criticisms it allows Gat to make of the popular interpretation of pre-First World War French miltary thought, ... the second important contribution of Gat's book is to show that the 19th-century European military had a coherent, convincing, and applicable view of war.' Security Studies