Tuesday 17 March 2020

Clausewitz 1796: "three books in one"



The Michigan War Studies Review has published an enthusiastic review of 'Napoleon's 1796 Italian Campaign', our edited and translated edition of Clausewitz's history of the campaign. Choice quotes:

'a valuable contribution to the growing body of work involving the erudite Prussian'

'effectively three books in one [viz., the original German manuscript; analysis from the French general staff edition; and Professor Murray's examination of] subjects and passages that anticipate ideas contained in On War.'

'a fine appendix of orders of battles'

'I applaud Nicholas Murray and Christopher Pringle for their salutary, thought-provoking addition to the literature by and about Clausewitz, who remains the model of how to write operational military history'

My thanks to Professor John T. Kuehn for his generous review.
The review is here.
The book itself is here.

We're doing our best to make further salutary and thought-provoking additions to the Clausewitz literature; our manuscripts for two more Clausewitz volumes on the history of the 1799 campaigns in Italy and Switzerland are in press with the University Press of Kansas now.



4 comments:

  1. Very cool. I had no idea that you collaborated with Dr Murray. I have his presentation on The Evolution of Warfare to 1914 on my blog. I'm even more impressed than I was before with the research behind your efforts.

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    1. Cheers, Ed. Yes, Nick and I go back a way. Take a look at his book, The Rocky Road to the Great War: The evolution of trench warfare to 1914:
      https://www.amazon.com/Rocky-Road-Great-War-Evolution/dp/1597975532/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1584450823&sr=1-1

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  2. Congratulations on the review.
    I was astonished by the lists of stuff that Bonaparte shook down from the various small Italian states. These are detailed in the notes. Along with money, horses, equipment and such are always a large number of paintings to be selected by Bonaparte himself. One can see origin of the Louvre's collection. When I finish Bernal Diaz (Conquest of New Spain) I may have to revisit your Clausewitz tome.

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    1. Thanks, Vincent. You'll be pleased to know that in the 1799 volumes (in press) you can continue to follow Bonaparte's larcenous career as he loots Malta, thereby annoying the Tsar and bringing Russia into the Second Coalition.

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Comments welcome!