Publisher's Weekly Review
Hanson (Makers of Ancient Strategy) begins with a deceptively simple question: "How are wars won or lost?" He cites familiar answers-technology, numbers, contingency-but he asserts that in desperate situations, human leadership still matters. To make his case, Hanson profiles five "savior generals" drawn from 2,500 years of conflict. Themistocles's leadership was "multifaceted," his career checkered; but his foresight preserved Greek freedom and its concepts of democracy, rationalism, and individual rights. Belisarius served a Byzantium on the edge of collapse, and established a strategic blueprint that for nearly a millennium held Western advances at bay. Sherman's 1864 campaign was a masterpiece of "planning and organization" in service of a war whose success ensured Lincoln's reelection and preserved the Union. Matthew Ridgway took over an unstable army and in 100 days saved South Korea and left an "indelible impression" on China regarding the risks of military confrontation with the U.S. Finally, David Petraeus designed and masterminded a "surge" that "saved a war deemed lost by almost everyone around him." Hanson accurately describes these men as a "rare breed" of "mavericks and loners." From Athens to Iraq, they seized their moments and reshaped history. Agent: Glen Hartley and Lynn Chu, Writers Representatives, LLC. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Business has its turnaround artists; so does warfare. Classical historian Hanson presents five generals who retrieved wars from defeat, three Americans (William Sherman, Matthew Ridgway, and David Petraeus) and two from ancient history (Themistocles of Battle of Salamis fame and Belisarius, briefly the restorer in the 500s of the Roman Empire). As a group, they exhibit commonalities that Hanson develops through the specific situations they confronted. In each case, despondency descended on wars going wrong, and dispelling it as much as a strategic change of course lay behind these generals' successes. Each one, Hanson argues, was a good communicator, up the line to their leaders, down the line to their soldiers, and more widely to civilians. Dispelling hopelessness by rejustification of a cause, explaining plans to redeem it, and restoring morale, they were, in Hanson's view, contrarians who naturally irritated political interests with their repudiations of preceding failures of strategy. Ingratitude was usually these generals' reward; after their rescue operations, most were shunted aside. Students of military leadership will be intrigued by Hanson's astute set of cases.--Taylor, Gilbert Copyright 2010 Booklist