The Cambridge History of Strategy: Volume 1, From Antiquity to the American War of Independence

A history of strategy the world over, from the beginning of recorded history to the end of the eighteenth century.

Isabelle Duyvesteyn (Edited by), Beatrice Heuser (Edited by)

9781108479950, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 9 January 2025

634 pages
23.5 x 16.1 x 3.8 cm, 1.14 kg

'shows how team research can transform our understanding of war' Sophie Therese Ambler, Books of the Year, History Today

Volume I of The Cambridge History of Strategy offers a history of the practice of strategy from the beginning of recorded history, to the late eighteenth century, from all parts of the world. Drawing on material evidence covering two and a half millennia, an international team of leading scholars in each subject examines how strategy was formulated and applied and with what tools, from ancient Greece and China to the Ottoman and Mughal Empires and the American Revolutionary War. They explore key themes from decision-makers and strategy-making processes, causes of wars and war aims and tools of strategy in war and peace, to configurations of armed forces and distinctive and shared ways of war across civilisations and periods. A comparative conclusion examines how the linking of political goals with military means took place in different parts of the world over the course of history, asking whether strategic practice has universal features.

Introduction to Volume I: The practice of strategy Isabelle Duyvesteyn and Beatrice Heuser
1. China to AD 180 Peter Lorge
2. Teispid and Achaemenid Persia (c. 550–330 BC) John O. Hyland
3. Ancient Greece: Strategy of the city states (500–300 BC) Roel Konijnendijk
4. Philip II, Alexander III and the Macedonian Empire Andrew Fear
5. Ancient Rome: Monarchy and Republic (753–27 BC) Louis Rawlings
6. China AD 180–1127 David A. Graff
7. Ancient Rome: principate and dominate (27 BC–AD 630) Michael Whitby
8. The Gupta Empire (AD 400–500) Kaushik Roy
9. The Sassanian Empire's strategies Katarzyna Maksymiuk
10. The Rashidun, Umayyad (661–750) and Abbasid (750–1258) Caliphates Mehdi Kurgan Kader
11. Byzantine strategy (AD 630–1204) Georgios Chatzelis
12. Strategies in the wars of western Europe, 476–c. 1000 John France
13. Latin Christendom in the later Middle Ages Sophie Therese Ambler
14. Chinggis Khan and the Mongol Empire, AD 1206–1368 Timothy May
15. Hindu and Buddhist polities of premodern/early modern mainland south-east Asia (1100–1800) Tassapa Umavijani
16. Pre-Columbian and early historic Native American warfare Patricia M. Lambert
17. Ottoman expansionism 1300–1823 Mesut Uyar
18. Strategy in the wars of pre-colonial Sub-Saharan Africa John Burton Kegel and Giacomo Macola
19. Strategies of the Mughal Empire Pratyay Nath
20. China, 1368–1911 Kenneth M. Swope
21. Early modern Europe: The Habsburgs and their enemies, 1519–1659 David Parrott
22. Naval strategies Andri van Vliet
23. The strategy of Louis XIV Jamel Ostwald
24. Hohenzollern strategy under Frederick II Adam L. Storring
25. American warfare in the eighteenth century Stephen Conway
Summary of Volume I Beatrice Heuser and Isabelle Duyvesteyn.

Subject Areas: Military history [HBW]