This study offers a new perspective on the origins of the Second World War by comparing and contrasting military planning in seven nations in the two decades before 1939 (and, in the case of the United States and Soviet Russia, before 1941). Developing themes over time and across military cultures allows the authors to provide a comparative framework in which to survey how military planning and foreign policy were interwoven and how these connections produced divergent national strategies in the context of differing nationalities, military organizations, and societies. The contributors to this volume have consciously employed a wide interpretation of military history by emphasizing the interplay of social, political, diplomatic, and economic factors with military concerns, as well as the relationship between war and society.

For example, the German army developed its concept of "blitzkrieg" by examining military theory generated within the General Staff before 1918, and by considering the new political circumstances in which the Weimar state and its Nazi successor found themselves as a result of the Versailles Treaty. Despite its ultimate success, the German concept was merely abstract and theoretical until the combined use of armor and air power was employed effectively in Poland in the autumn of 1939 and in Western Europe during the spring of 1940. In contrast, the French defensive strategy built around the use of the Maginot Line was illustrative of a mainly defensive foreign policy, while British appeasement policy reflected the diminished level of military preparedness that was possible throughout the 1930s.

This collection uses a series of case studies to assess the impact of heretical military leaders who developed policy and strategy during war and peace in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The issue for each contributor is not necessarily to show whether the endeavors of individuals and their unorthodoxy were successful or unsuccessful--though this important consideration is not ignored. Rather, each chapter offers differing points of view on accomplishments and failure because, as is so often the experience in historical study, the record is mixed; and this is especially so in terms of the application of military power in the period since the Napoleonic wars. Technological and scientific innovation, the rise of mass armies, the advent of total war, and the need to develop effective armed forces in a period of rapid change prompted new approaches in policy and strategy. In this period, it is clear that a dialectic in military thinking existed between those who followed what can be thought of as orthodox ideas, based generally on the lessons of preceding wars, and heretics who advocate new policies and strategies.

These essays explore the link between the naval strength and global power of Great Britain and the United States from 1815 to the present. The British Way of Warfare assumed that the country with control of the sea could ensure safe and rapid communications for its commerce. The American theory of naval strategy, on the other hand, assumed that one had to engage the enemy in order to assure command of the sea. These case studies illustrate once again that naval history must include cultural, economic, political, and social contexts.

From Thermopylae to Belfast, elite military formations have been deployed against conventional or irregular forces. This study offers a superb analysis of elites in military history. A collection of brilliant studies by distinguished scholars, it illuminates, through a combination of overview and case study, a historical subject that has profound implications for the development of specialized forces in the post-Cold War Era. The study uses a comparative approach which investigates the topic over time and across culture.