Roots of Strategy: Book 1

Used this for part of my son's homeschool curriculum. Very well done and interesting. He was 15 and couldn't put it down.

Absolutely delightful! One of the greatest joys is inclusion of "Reveries" by Marshall Maurice de Saxe with his comments on commissariat, clothing, training, and organization of armies - for his period revolutionary, and, as principles, relevant even today. Vegetius will be, for many, a discovery, and the Instruction for His Generals by Frederick the Great will also be a novelty for many American readers. One of the tragic misconceptions of military strategy classics is the fact that they are viewed as nothing but military classics. At the same time, there are thousands of banal, if not entirely worthless texts on leadership in business, politics, education, and almost everything else. One feels as if readers of the latter class of books lacked sufficient intelligence to substitute word "military" for "business" (or whatever else their leadership is about), make a few intellectual adjustments, and get not only a very good view of what leadership is about, but get it directly from some of the best practitioners of the art, who wield their pens with mastery of language that too often is lacking among the present authors. Hence, if nothing else, reading the works included in Gen. Phillips' collection is also a school how to write simply on a complex subject - something our university students and junior academics could learn to emulate.

A very helpful collection of military philosophies. Sun Tzu, Vegetius, De Saxe, Frederick, and Napolean. A brief biography of each author is also provided with some background on their works. A must have for the military thinker. The translations of De Saxe and Sun Tzu alone are worth the price.

I am quite enjoying this book and thought I'd give a little bit more information on it so that you can decide whether to fork over your hard earned cash. This book is part of a series and Volume One contains treatises by the following authors: Sun Tzu Vegetius De Saxe Frederick Napoleon Besides the treatises themselves there is an "Editors Foreword" which gives a brief two-page history of how these works fit historically into the literature of warfare. There is also a synopsis of the contents which lists each work individually. Additional information is provided here as well. For example the synopsis for the "Art of War" states, amongst other things, that it was written about 500 B.C. And that it is still held in reverence today (as of 1940 A.D.) in China and Japan. But what is really useful and wonderful are the thoughtful introductions to each work. For instance, we are told in the introduction of "De Re Militari" that even as late as the 15th Century that there were as many as 150 extant manuscripts. (A huge number in historical terms.) He goes on to say something about Vegetius, Emperor Valentianian (to whom the book was dedicated), and the Roman Empire. In addition -- and this is the part I found well worthwhile -- the editor explains how the popularity and usefulness of the strategy went in and out of favor as technology changed. He writes: "It is a paradox the De Re Militari, which was to become a military bible for innumerable generations of European soldiers, was little used by the Romans for whom it was written." Also, "Cavalry had adopted the armor of the foot soldier and was just commencing to become the principal arm of the military forces. The heavy armed foot-soldier, formerly the backbone of the legion, was falling a victim of his own weight and immobility, and the light-armed infantry, unable to resist the shock of cavalry, was turning more and more to missile weapons. By one of the strange mutations of history, when later the cross-bow and gun-powder deprived cavalry of its shock-power, the tactics of Vegetius again became ideal for armies.... For someone like me who is not a military expert, this sort of information allows me to understand how the advice was used by others in later centuries. Four Stars. [B+]. Interesting material with valuable editorial commentary. Minus points for the fact that some material from the originals has been omitted. The editor notes that it was of little interest, but I'd rather make that decision myself.

Firstly, I've read many versions of The Art of War by Sun Tzu and they all seemed to be translated by someone with Chinese as their native language, rather than English. This translation is as clear as they get. Napoleon's maxims are short and sweet. The other works contained herein are also easy to read and are packed with simple, eternal principles of warfare.