Review
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“[T]he best education in grand strategy available in a
single volume . . . a long walk with a single, delightful mind .
. . On Grand Strategy is a book that should be read by every
American leader or would-be leader.” — John Nagl, Wall Street
Journal
“A remarkably erudite volume…[that] renders nuanced verdicts on
an eclectic cohort of thinkers, writers, monarchs and
conquerors…Gaddis has indisputably earned the right to plow
different fields of historical inquiry, which he does in On Grand
Strategy with self-evident glee and peripatetic curiosity.”
—Washington Post
“Thought-provoking…The approach is highly idiosyncratic and the
structure loose; it has something of the feel of a personal
manifesto or intellectual memoir.” —Weekly Standard
“[An] eminently readable book by a master historian…It is a
brilliant book—learned, seductively written, deep.” —The New
Criterion
“Lively…Gaddis concludes with an invaluable warning that true
morality embraces neither messianic interventionism nor the quest
for utopianism…Instead, ethical leadership pursues the art of the
possible for the greater (not the greatest) good…On Grand
Strategy is many things—a thoughtful validation of the liberal
arts, an argument for literature over social science, an engaging
reflection on university education and some timely advice to
Americans that lasting victory comes from winning what you can
rather than all that you want.” —The New York Times Book Review
“An extraordinary treatise on the need to teach the principles
of sound strategy to today’s leaders…The book…is a rich one. It
makes sense of our world, but is also capable of beautifully
crafted pithy historical judgments…It is a book that cares about
liberty, choice and a moral compass, that warns against the
hubris of an angry Bonaparte on the turn in a Russian winter,
against leaders who do not listen or learn. A training manual for
our troubled times.”
—The Times (UK)
“A fine summary of the complex concepts explored in [Gaddis’s]
Grand Strategy seminar, full of vivid examples of leadership and
strategic thinking, from the Persian king Xerxes to Churchill’s
and Roosevelt’s WWII strategies…Gaddis brings a deep knowledge of
history and a pleasingly economical prose style to this rigorous
study of leadership.” —Publishers Weekly
“A capacious analysis of how leaders make strategic decisions…A
lively, erudite study of the past in service of the future.”
—Kirkus Reviews
On The Cold War: A New History
“Outstanding . . . The most accessible distillation of that
conflict yet written.” - The Boston Globe
“Energetically written and lucid, it makes an ideal introduction
to the subject.” - The New York Times
“A fresh and admirably concise history . . . Gaddis’s mastery of
the material, his fluent style and eye for the telling anecdote
make his new work a pleasure.” - The Economist
On George F. Kennan: An American Life
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize
''Magisterial . . . [Kennan] bids fair to be as close to the
final word as possible on one of the most important, complex,
moving, challenging, and exasperating American public servants .
. . We can be grateful to John Lewis Gaddis for bringing Kennan
back to us, thoughtful, human, self-centered, contradictory,
inspirational—a permanent spur as consciences are wont to be.
Masterfully researched, exhaustively documented, Gaddis' moving
work gives us a figure with whom, however one might differ on
details, it was a privilege to be a contemporary.'' - Henry A.
Kissinger, New York Times Book Review
“[A] first-rate biography . . . Kennan's life s right onto
twentieth-century political history, and no one is better
qualified than Gaddis to lead the way through it . . . Gaddis has
written with care and elegance, and he has produced a biography
whose fineness is worthy of its subject.” –The New Yorker
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About the Author
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John Lewis Gaddis is the Robert A. Lovett Professor of
History at Yale University, and was the founding director of the
Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy. His previous books
include The United States and the Origins of the Cold
War; Strategies of Containment; The Long Peace; We Now Know; The
Landscape of History; Surprise, Security, and the American
Experience; and The Cold War: A New History. Professor Gaddis
teaches courses on Cold War history, grand strategy, biography,
and historical methodology. He has won two undergraduate teaching
awards at Yale and was a 2005 recipient of the National
Humanities Medal. His George F. Kennan: An American Life won the
2012 Pulitzer Prize in Biography.
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