Paret Peter. Understanding War: Essays on Clausewitz and the History of Military Power

Princeton University Press, 2020. — 252 p.These essays provide an authoritative introduction to Carl von Clausewitz and enlarge the history of war by joining it to the history of ideas and institutions and linking it with intellectual biography. The essays are divided into three parts. The first part is primarily about war from the ancien régime to the early decades of the nineteenth century. Several essays analyze issues that begin earlier and end later—if they can be said to have ended at all—but their center of gravity remains in this period. Together they outline some of the fundamental conditions of the military world into which Clausewitz was born and which provided the starting point for his efforts to understand not only war in his time but war in general. The first part of the book forms the backdrop for the second part, which consists of nine essays on Clausewitz himself. They begin with a general account, continue with discussions of particular aspects of his life and thought, and end with two studies on the last year of his life. The third part, with which the book concludes, consists merely of one essay. It is neither about a historical episode or problem nor—except in passing—about Clausewitz, but about the history of war as an academic discipline.