Best Books on War Strategy: Six Classics in Reading Order
Six old books on war, power and discipline, in an order that moves from short principles to campaigns, states, crowds and self-command.
Editorial reading list. Every claim about a book comes from our full review of it, linked under each section.
The six books below are old texts on war, power and discipline. Read them in the order given. The path starts with short principles, tests them against a campaign and against states, moves on to crowds, and ends with a book about one reader's own judgment. Each review has a section on what does not hold up, so every warning in this list comes from the reviews themselves. Readers who want the same subject as forty rules, each drawn from a real campaign, can find it in The Laws of Conquest by C.F. Cedar.
The Art of War
Start here because the review calls it a short, dense set of maxims on planning, ground and intelligence, which gives a first-time reader the principles before any campaign detail. Watch for the omen and star material, especially the lunar timing of fire attacks in Chapter XII, which the review says the text does not support with evidence. Expect few campaign examples, since they run a sentence or two each.
[Read the full review](/reviews/the-art-of-war/)
The Officer's Manual: Napoleon's Maxims of War
The second book supplies the campaign detail that the first leaves out: seventy-eight numbered maxims, each followed by a note with campaign examples dated from 1644 to 1814. Watch for rules that pull against each other, since Maxim XII says to keep one line of operation and Maxim XX calls changing it one of the most skillful maneuvers in war, and the book does not reconcile them. Keep each maxim apart from its note, because the notes sometimes narrow or overrule the rule, and the transcriber flags two dates in the notes as misprints.
[Read the full review](/reviews/napoleons-maxims-of-war/)
Anabasis
Anabasis comes third because it tests the rules in one campaign: Xenophon's account of Greek mercenaries who lose their generals deep in Persia and fight their way to the sea. Watch for the royal army figure of one million two hundred thousand, which the review says nobody counts, and for the passages where Xenophon defends his own conduct over pay. Expect nineteenth-century English, which the review says will feel heavy to readers used to smooth modern prose.
[Read the full review](/reviews/anabasis/)
The Prince
The Prince comes fourth because it moves the same questions from the battlefield to the state, and its cases include five errors that the text says cost Louis XII of France Lombardy. Watch for cruelty described as technique: Chapter VIII counts Agathocles' cruelty as well used, and the author alone judges when it is necessary. Read the footnotes too, since one traces a Chapter XVIII passage back to Cicero's De Officiis.
[Read the full review](/reviews/the-prince/)
The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind
The Crowd comes fifth because it explains how a leader moves a large group through suggestion, contagion, repetition and the belief that leaders supply. Read Books I and II for that mechanism, and treat each claim as a hypothesis, since the review says the book offers examples, not tests. Watch for the race passages, which the review says carry no evidence, and for the sweeping line about truth, which has no source.
[Read the full review](/reviews/the-crowd/)
Meditations
Meditations comes last because it turns from campaigns and states to the reader's own judgment: Marcus Aurelius wrote notes addressed to himself on self-command. Watch for repetition, since Book XII says all is but conceit and opinion in section VI, then says all is but opinion again in section XVI. Watch also for paraphrase, because the editor says Casaubon's version is often not a close translation, so read it a few sections at a time, as the review advises.
[Read the full review](/reviews/meditations/)