Lawrence Freedman Audio & Video

In Strategy: A History, Sir Lawrence Freedman, one of the world's leading authorities on war and international politics, captures the vast history of strategic thinking, in a consistently engaging and insightful account of how strategy came to pervade every aspect of our lives.

Strategy: A History is a sweeping, magisterial account of this elemental force in human history. Since the beginning of civilization, humans have devised multi-step plans to achieve greater ends, and as history progressed plans became ever more elaborate.

Using examples from a wide variety of conflicts, Lawrence Freedman shows that successful military command depends on the ability not only to use armed forces effectively, but also to understand the political context in which they are operating.

In 1912, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, wrote a short story about a war fought from underwater submersibles that included the sinking of passenger ships.