Clausewitz in his time : essays in the cultural and intellectual history of thinking about war

Far from being a detached theorist, Carl von Clausewitz was as intensely aware of the cultural and intellectual currents of his time as he was engaged in its political and military conflicts. The society in which he lived and the people with whom he served affected the analytic method he developed in his writing and the conclusions he reached. The essays in this volume examine Clausewitz in comparison with teachers, friends, and opponents, a perspective enriched by significant documents which have been previously ignored. They deepen our knowledge of Clausewitz's life and how he enlarged his understanding of warfare from its mechanisms and the interaction of its elements to its apparently permanent place in the relation between states.