Napoleon on the Art of War

· Sold by Simon and Schuster
3.9
8 reviews
Ebook
208
Pages
Eligible

About this ebook

Napoleon. The passage of time has not dimmed the power of his name. A century and a half after his death, Napoleon remains the greatest military genius of the modern world. Yet unlike Machiavelli, Clausewitz, or Sun Tzu, his name has not crowned any single literary work. The subject of thousands of biographies and treatises on warfare, he is the author of none. Until now.
The great general and conqueror of Europe may not have written any books, but he was a prolific writer. Thousands of his missives to subordinates survive, and these documents reflect the broad range of a fearless and incisive mind. From them, military historian Jay Luvaas has wrought a seamless whole. Luvaas has spent decades culling, editing, and arranging Napoleon's thoughts into coherent essays and arguments. In the remarkable result. Napoleon speaks without interruption in a work that will forever change the way we view him.
Luvaas covers every subject Napoleon wrote about, from the need for preparation -- "Simply gathering men together does not produce real soldiers; drill, instruction, and skill is what makes real soldiers." -- to the essence of victory -- "To win is not enough: It is necessary to profit from success." On education, leadership, strategy and history, Napoleon speaks with an authority unique to those who have ruled a continent. In these pages lies the wisdom of a giant who knew life's greatest achievements and its lowest lows: triumph and conquest, exile and disgrace.
Whether you are a student of military strategy or a business professional eager to learn from the greatest manager of personnel that the world has ever known, Napoleon on the Art of War has something for you. From the specifies of Napoleon's use of cavalry and unique reliance upon artillery to an all-encompassing vision of life from a man of supreme confidence and success, you'll find it here. This is the only straightforward explanation of Napoleon's campaigns and philosophy by the man himself.

Ratings and reviews

3.9
8 reviews
A Google user
January 12, 2012
Anyone who reads a comprehensive history of France/Europe will be left in no doubt of at least two big points about Napoleon Bonaparte: One, Napoleon was drunk with the concept of conquest; this is hardly unknown. Two, which is hardly reported by the records of history, one learns from Jay Luvaas' work the super strategic mind and immense knowledge of the science of the Art of War buried in the mind of the small, sickly-looking man and the core light of confidence and foxy shrewdness that pushed and pushed him into tragically thinking he could conquer and control the whole of Europe. It is high praise for the book that Luvaas makes Napoleon speak for himself - his own writings, letters, memos, etc. However, because of that very quality - making Napoleon speak for himself - the book lacks literary flow. In my personal opinion, however, that is a small price to pay in the face of the huge advantage the book has - it allows us to enter the mind of the tragic sovereign-general. - Yirenkyi Lamptey; Accra, Ghana.
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About the author

Jay Luvaas was one of the country's leading military historians and editor and translator of Frederick the Great on the Art of War.

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