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The Future of War

By: Lawrence Freedman
Narrated by: Michael Page
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Publisher's Summary

In 1912, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, wrote a short story about a war fought from underwater submersibles that included the sinking of passenger ships. At the time, it was dismissed by the British generals and admirals of the day not because the idea of submarines was technically unfeasible, but because no one could imagine that any nation would be so depraved as to sink civilian merchant ships. The future of war more often than not surprises us less because of some fantastic technical or engineering dimension but because of some human, political, or moral threshold that we had never imagined wanting to cross.

As Lawrence Freedman shows, the future of war has a past and a present. Ideas of war, strategies for warfare and its practice, and organizing principles of war all have rich and varied origins which have shaped the minds of those who conceive the next war. Freedman shows how war can be studied systematically and empirically to provide a firm foundation for enlightened policy.

The Future of War - which covers civil wars to as yet unknown nuclear conflicts, proxy wars (real) to the Cold War (not), fashionably small wars to the War to End All Wars (it didn't) - is filled with insight and fascinating nuggets of military history and culture from one of the most brilliant military and strategic historians of his generation.

©2017 Lawrence Freedman (P)2017 HighBridge, a Division of Recorded Books
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

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A good read for the well read.

This book covers a wide range of information that forms an opinion on how the past has shaped the nature of future wars. There are a decent number of case studies and analytical points throughout the book that can support academic studies.

However, I would only recommend this book to those with a strong understanding of military history and politics with an educated background. I make this recommendation because of my limited understanding of higher level strategic policy and the intricacies of previous conflicts. I became lost in the content at times and felt further research was needed on my behalf to fully understand the points that were being made.

Regardless, the book is well narrated and does support a broad range of thinking that could support academic study.

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