Czytajac Clausewitza

by Beatrice Heuser

Ksiazka Beatrice Heuser przychodzi do polskiego czytelnika w sama pore Oto bowiem kraj w ktorym tradycja mysli i praktyki strategicznej byla odlegla od litery i ducha rozwazan Clausewitza dosc nieoczekiwanie zaczyna sam uczestniczyc w wojnach z wyboru militarnych ekspedycjach w odleglych czesciach swiata czy zbrojnych operacjach ktorych celem jest utrzymanie bezpieczenstwa i stabilnosci z dala od jego granic Polski polityk podejmuje decyzje o ofensywnym uzyciu sily zbrojnej a polski zolnierz stara sie je wykonac Brakujacym ogniwem w tym lancuchu zdaje sie analityk czy badacz w sferze studiow strategicznych Jak przekonuje Beatrice Heuser znajomosc dziela Clausewitza takze dzisiaj w czasach bez analizowanych przezen wojen absolutnych czy doskonalych stanowi fundament wszelkiej refleksji strategicznej Autorka oczyszcza dzielo Clausewitza z wielu nieporozumien Dokonujac zas przemyslanej selekcji zagadnien i korzystajac z pomocy glownie dwudziestowiecznych interpretatorow Clausewitza praktykow i teoretykow strategii oraz studiow strategicznych niezwykle ulatwia zrozumienie jego rozwazan o wojnie i wielu zjawiskach jej towarzyszacych Kazdy kto w odpowiedzialny sposob chce sie zajmowac problematyka uzycia sily powinien czytac Clausewitza W dotarciu do istoty jego stanowiska w tych sprawach niezastapiona pomoca bedzie Czytajac Clausewitza Beatrice Heuser

Genres: History

288 pages, Paperback

First published May 2, 2002

Reviews

[So · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great introduction into Clausewitz‘s works that helps us to understand where he got his inspiration from and what people and their respective thoughts he inspired. It succinctly discusses his main concepts, their usefulness as well as the shortcomings of his work.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was very surprised by how much in this book I found to disagree with. Heuser's analysis of Clausewitz hinges on an idealist/realist duality that she assigns to his writings pre- and post-1827, respectively, something that I'm not sure is entirely borne out by the record. The idea that Clausewitz turned on a dime and began to incorporate his later, more "realist" views about war into Book VIII and the rewrite of Book I just doesn't hold water for me, and doesn't account for the appearance of a number of "realist" insights elsewhere in the text. Heuser seems to be holding on to what I believe to be a misunderstanding of the absolute war-vs-limited war comparison on which much of "On War" turns; this is no crime on its own - many others have made the same error - but it torpedoes her thesis.

In her other writings, Heuser has shown a dogged determination to highlight Clausewitz's utter un-specialness as a strategic-/military-theoretical writer, and that determination shows through here. Yes, we know other people wrote similar things around the same time, and even before. But this book is about Clausewitz!

The real strength of this book is as a sort of literature review of the major commentaries on Clausewitz over the last two centuries, but Bassford's "Clausewitz in English" is both in some ways more thorough and, I'd hazard, more theoretically accurate (if certainly more boring for the lay reader). Heuser does a great job of opening up the untranslated German-language commentaries to the English-only reader, but I fear the really uninitiated would be led off track by her basic argument.

[Legens · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pros:
- Reading this saves you the work of going through Clausewitz's seminal work yourself (which suffers from terrible hypotaxis and was not fully edited by the author yet when he died).
- Does a good job explaining the basic concepts of On War and the evolution in Clausewitz' thinking.

Cons:
- Somewhat inflated discussion of the reception of Clausewitz's concepts in strategic theory (mainly by people who did not understand or even read Clausewitz).
- Author's writing style is somewhat similar to Clausewitz's (see above).

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well done. According to Hauser, Clausewitz was only satisfied with Book I, and had only addressed his most highly developed realist views in Book VIII.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some interesting ideas here and I will need to reread certain sections again to fully understand the idealist/realist aspect of her work but there were insights into the Vietnam war in particular which reorientated the way I now look at that conflict.

I would suggest anyone reading this book gets some background on the main ideas of Clausewitzian theory before they attempt to read this otherwise you may become lost.

I also liked the chapter on guerilla warfare albeit a little short.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dry reading, but interesting for its ideas on the philosophy of war.