Présentation de l'éditeur
John Keegan’s brilliant look at the meaning of leadership
In The Mask of Command, John Keegan asks us to consider questions that are seldom asked: What is the definition of leadership? What makes a great military leader? Why is it that men, indeed sometimes entire nations, follow a single leader, often to victory, but with equal dedication also to defeat?
Dozens of names come to mind...Napoleon, Lee, Charlemagne, Hannibal, Castro, Hussein. From a wide array, Keegan chooses four commanders who profoundly influenced the course of history: Alexander the Great, the Duke of Wellington, Ulysses S. Grant and Adolph Hitler. All powerful leaders, each cast in a different mold, each with diverse results.
“The best military historian of our generation.” –Tom Clancy
“A brilliant treatise on the essence of military leadership.” –The Philadelphia Inquirer
“Fascinating and enlightening... marked by great intellectual liveliness... Mr. Keegan knows how to bring fighting alive on the page.” –The New York Times
Présentation de l'éditeur
Most studies of generalship have focused on individual character and behaviour. While these are not neglected in this remarkable book, its central argument is that, like warfare itself, generalship is a cultural enterprise, providing a key to understanding a particular era or place, as much as it is an exercise in power or military skill.
Through portraits of four generals – archetypal hero Alexander the Great, anti-hero Wellington, the unheroic Ulysses S. Grant and the false heroic of Hitler – John Keegan propounds the view of heroism in warfare as inextricably linked with the political imperative of the age and place. He demonstrates how the role of the general alters with the ethos of the society that creates him and concludes that there is no place for heroism in a nuclear world.
The Mask of Command is a companion to John Keegan’s classic study of the individual soldier, The Face of Battle: together they form a masterpiece of military and human history.
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