Leadership in War
Lessons from Those Who Made History
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4.0 • 3 Ratings
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
'Wonderful ... among military historians, Roberts is Britain's crown gem' Wall Street Journal
Taking us from the French Revolution to the Cold War and the Falklands, celebrated historian Andrew Roberts presents us with a bracingly honest and insightful look at nine major figures in modern history: Napoleon Bonaparte, Horatio Nelson, Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, George C. Marshall, Charles de Gaulle, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Margaret Thatcher.
Each of these leaders fundamentally shaped the outcome of the war their nation was embroiled in. How were they alike, and in what ways did they differ? Was their war leadership unique, or did these leaders have something in common, traits and techniques that transcend time and place and can be applied to the fundamental nature of conflict?
Meticulously researched and compellingly written, Leadership in War presents readers with fresh, complex portraits of leaders who approached war with different tactics and different weapons, but with the common goal of success in the face of battle. Both inspiring and cautionary, these portraits offer important lessons on leadership in times of struggle. With his trademark verve and incisive observation, Roberts reveals the qualities that doom even the most promising leaders to failure, and the qualities that lead to victory.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This underdeveloped history by Roberts (Churchill: Walking with Destiny) adapts a series of lectures in which he examined the lives of nine wartime leaders: Napoleon Bonaparte, Horatio Nelson, Winston Churchill, Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Charles DeGaulle, George Marshall, Dwight Eisenhower, and Margaret Thatcher. Roberts believes "there are certain definable principles and leadership techniques that are eternal," but the short biographical sketches don't convincingly support that conclusion. The chapter on Horatio Nelson, for example, details his early years rising through the naval ranks, his infamous extramarital romantic escapades with Emma Hamilton, and his daring, and fatal, heroism at the Battle of Trafalgar; then it closes with a laundry list of leadership assets (including "have a treasury back home prepared to finance the organization of the fantastically expensive operations") without providing strong connections between them and the preceding narrative. The book closes with a synthesizing chapter that presents wide-ranging conclusions about qualities important for leadership, ranging from the typical (a strong memory) to the odd (the "overlap between successful war leadership and literary ability"). This survey is probably too cursory and superficial to reward readers who want to know more about these leaders.
