The Cambridge History of Strategy: Volume 2, From the Napoleonic Wars to the Present: (The Cambridge History of Strategy)

Volume II of The Cambridge History of Strategy focuses on the practice of strategy from 1800 to the present day. A team of eminent scholars examine how leaders of states, empires and non-state groups (such as guerrilla forces, rebel groups and terrorists) have attempted to practise strategy in the modern period. With a focus on the actual 'doing' of strategy, the volume aims to understand real-world experiences when ideas about conflict are carried out against a responding and proactive opponent. The case studies and material presented in the volume form an invitation to rethink dominant perspectives in the field of strategic studies. As the case studies demonstrate, strategy is most often not a stylised, premeditated and wilful phenomenon. Rather, it is a product of circumstance and opportunity, both structural and agential, leading to a view of strategy as an ad hoc, if not chaotic, enterprise.

Table of Contents:
Introduction to Volume II: The practice of strategy Isabelle Duyvesteyn and Beatrice Heuser; 1. The strategies of the Napoleonic Wars Alan Forrest; 2. Guerrilla and nineteenth-century strategies of insurgency Ian Beckett; 3. Russia, 1870–1917 Andrey Pavlov; 4. The American Civil War Donald Stoker; 5. The use of naval power Andrew Lambert; 6. The Russo–Japanese War Rotem Kowner; 7. Chinese strategy 1926-1949 Christopher Yung; 8. First World War Robert Foley; 9. Soviet strategy, 1917–1945 Nikita Lomagin; 10. Air power Frans Osinga; 11. The Second World War in Europe Guillaume Piketty; 12. The Second World War in the Asia–Pacific David Horner; 13. Soviet strategy, 1945–1989 Laurien Crump; 14. People's war and wars of decolonisation Mathilde von Bülow; 15. Nuclear strategies Jeffrey H. Michaels; 16. America's way of war Antulio J. Echevarria II; 17. The Korean War Xiaobing Li; 18. Israel's wars Eitan Shamir and Eado Hecht; 19. The India–Pakistan confrontations Sumit Ganguly; 20. The Yugoslav War, 1991–1999 James Gow; 21. Terrorism and insurgency Colin P. Clarke; 22. The Forty-Year War in Afghanistan Jan Angstrom; 23. The three Gulf wars and Iraq Ahmed S. Hashim; 24. China's wars, 1950–2021 Christopher Yung; Conclusion Isabelle Duyvesteyn and Samuel Zilincik.

About the Author :
Isabelle Duyvesteyn is Professor of International Studies/Global History at the Institute of History at Leiden University. Between 2012 and 2017 she held the Special Chair in Strategic Studies at the Political Science Institute of Leiden University. Between 2008 and 2020 she was a member of the national Advisory Council on International Affairs assigned to advise the Netherlands government on issues of peace and security, and between 2012 and 2021 she was a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Netherlands Defence Academy. Beatrice Heuser holds the Chair of International Relations at the University of Glasgow, and is seconded to the General Staff College of the Bundeswehr in Hamburg as Section Chief for Strategy. She has worked at NATO Headquarters as a consultant. She has served on academic advisory boards of the Royal United Services Institute, the French Institute of International Affairs (IFRI) and the French government's strategic studies think tank IRSEM. She has previously taught at universities in the UK, Germany and France.

Review :
'An effective and important contribution … useful for students, military and professionals alike …' James W. E. Smith, The Naval Review