Overview

A bold revisionist history exploring the impact of WW1 on the mindsets and strategic decisions of WW2's most important leaders In THE STRATEGISTS, Professor Phillips Payson O'Brien shows how the views these five leaders forged in WW1 are crucial to understanding how they fought WW2. For example, Churchill's experiences of facing the German Army in France in 1916 made him unwilling to send masses of British soldiers back there in the 1940s, while Hitler's mistakes on the Eastern Front were influenced by his reluctance to accept that conditions had changed since his own time fighting. The implications of the power of leaders remain with us to this day- to truly understand what is happening in Ukraine, for example, requires us to know what has influenced the leaders involved. This is a history in which leaders - and their choices - matter. For better or worse.

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9781405966597

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Reviews

The Strategists matches a remarkably wide-ranging expertise with an eye for telling detail and a lucid style. It is full of fascinating insights about the use and misuse of power: global, national and individual. * Professor Daniel Todman, author of Britain's War * A worthy addition [to bookshelves] . . . compelling * Kirkus *

Phillips Payson O’Brien is one of our finest historical thinkers. The Strategists shows him at the height of his powers: a book full of deep perception, convincingly challenging many entrenched views and examining these five leaders that so shaped the modern world in an entirely fresh, brilliantly insightful and utterly compelling way. Everyone with an interest in not just the Second World War, but the twentieth century and beyond, should read this without delay. * James Holland, author of Normandy ’44 * The Strategists matches a remarkably wide-ranging expertise with an eye for telling detail and a lucid style. It is full of fascinating insights about the use and misuse of power: global, national and individual. * Professor Daniel Todman, author of Britain's War * A worthy addition [to bookshelves] . . . compelling * Kirkus *

Author Information

Phillips Payson O'Brien is Professor of Strategic Studies at St Andrews. He is the author of How the War Was Won- Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II and The Second Most Powerful Man in the World- The Life of Admiral William D. Leahy, Roosevelt's Chief of Staff. He has written for The Atlantic, The Spectator and Foreign Affairs, and has a combined following of over 200k on Twitter and Substack. This is his first trade book.

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