[DOWNLOAD] "Les Pharons Du Nouvel Empire (Book Review)" by The Journal of the American Oriental Society * Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Les Pharons Du Nouvel Empire (Book Review)
- Author : The Journal of the American Oriental Society
- Release Date : January 01, 2008
- Genre: Social Science,Books,Nonfiction,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 183 KB
Description
Les Pharons du nouvel empire: Une pensee strategique (1550-1069 avant J.-C). By PIERRE GRANDET. L'Art de la Guerre. Monaco: EDITIONS DU ROCHER, 2008. Pp. 381. [euro]19. People do not read Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species much anymore. The same may be said of Clausewitz's Zum Krieg. The reason normally given is that neither of these epoch-making works has stood the test of time. Empirical data, it is claimed, has replaced the need to peruse these once sturdy and apparently timeless works. After all, have not munitions altered since Napoleonic times? Has not the rapid development of modern transportation rendered Clausewitz's analysis of sea versus land power, a position that Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan followed with such strong belief, nugatory? These two points--additional ones are easy to proffer--all too frequently come to the fore when a serious discussion of warfare ensues. Yet the crucial nature of those treatises, one that prevents them from ever becoming outdated, is the generality of approach. Clausewitz and Darwin each presented an overarching theory in which individual components of data could be explained. By doing this, a "general theory" could be propounded in which separate units of approach--in Clausewitz's approach the army, the famous tripartite division of the "nation," or the degrees of development within a war, leading in some cases a outrance, could be tied together into a harmonious unity. (1) That this was never achieved in this case was due to the premature death of the writer. Nonetheless, Clausewitz went into precise detail when he found it necessary to provide a definitional and philosophical account of war. With regard to this fundamental aspect, the key points for which he is remembered include his concept of "friction," one that knits perfectly with physics and economics, and the division between strategy and tactics.