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Informationen zum Autor Christian P. Potholm is the DeAlva Stanwood Alexander Professor of Government at Bowdoin College. He has studied and taught about war for over 50 years. His major works on war include Winning at War: Seven Keys to Military Victory Throughout History, War Wisdom: A Cross Cultural Sampling, Liberation and Exploitation and Strategy and Conflict. Klappentext Understanding War divides war material into eighteen overarching themes of analysis and fifty seminal topics. In the process, it gives the reader access to the broadest possible array of material across both time and space, beginning with the earliest forms of warfare and concluding with the contemporary situation. Zusammenfassung Understanding War divides war material into eighteen overarching themes of analysis and fifty seminal topics. In the process! it gives the reader access to the broadest possible array of material across both time and space! beginning with the earliest forms of warfare and concluding with the contemporary situation. Inhaltsverzeichnis PrefacePart I Analyzing Warfare 1.Why Study Military Matters?2."Eros and Mars: The Nature of Humankind" -or- "Making Love AND War"3.The Search for Fundamental Truths about War: Sun Tzu, Kautilya, Thucydides, Jomini, Clausewitz and Other Military Thinkers and Students of War4.Geopolitics and the Long Shadow of Geography5.The Template of Mars "Superior Weapons Technology""Superior Discipline""Sustained but Controlled Ruthlessness""Receptivity to Military and Integrative Innovation""The Ability and Willingness to Protect Capital from People and Rulers""The Centrality of Superior Will""The Belief That There Will Always Be another War"6."The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb" -or- "Hiroshima as Seen Through the Lens of Mars"7."Mars is a Jealous God": Part I The Lessons of Iraq War I-or-"Clausewitz Vindicated-For the Last Time?"8."Is the Template Obsolete in the Face of Insurgencies?"Theoreticians and PractitionersOverviews of InsurgencySome Illustrative Case Studies: Showing the Experience of Insurgency and Counter Insurgency Across Cross-Cultural Lines9.The American "Empire" and the Dangers Which Lie AheadThe Empire as Empire (or Hegemon)The Nuclear DimensionChinaFailed and Fragile StatesIslamic Radical Salafists and Local and Global InsurgenciesAfghanistan: Watch on the Danube ReduxPart II Topics in War10.Early Warfare11.Classical Infantry: Greek12.Classical Infantry: Roman13."The Horsemen Commeth": The Centrality of Mounted WarcraftPart I: The Mounted Horsemen of the SteppesPart II: European Heavy Horse: Feudalism and Knighthood, Power Diffusion and Its Consequences and Later Power CentralizationPart III: ByzantiumPart IV: African Heavy Horse: Power Centralization and Power DiffusionPart V: Arab Light(er) Horse: Flow and Ebb, Ebb and FlowPart VI: Japanese and ChinesePart VII: Parthian and SassanianPart VIII: Mongol and Later Turkic Asian HorsemenPart IX: Indian and South Asian14.The Vikings15.The Gunpowder and Discipline Revolution and The Expansion of the Gunpowder Empires16.Era of the European Great CaptainsMaurice of Nassau (1567-1625)Gustavus Adolphus (1594-1632)Charles XII (1682-1718)Louis XIVThe Duke of Marlborough (1650-1722)Frederick the Great (1712-1786)17.Warfare on the Periphery and The Expansion of the European Gunpowder Empires18.Revolution and Civil War19.The Real United States Is BornAmerican Military History (General)War of 1812The Mexican War20.Further Democratization of War: The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars Spread Nationalism to Prussia, Austria and Especially Russia21."The American Civil War: Fratricide in Living Color"22.Civil Wars in PerspectiveSome Illustrative Examples23.Precursors to 20th Century War24.World War I: "The Hypertrophy of War and the Triumph of the Defense"25.Transition Within the Continuum: The Interwar Years26.The Battle of Nomonhan/Khal...
