On Grand Strategy

Praise

 “[T]he best education in grand strategy available in a single volume . . . a long walk with a single, delightful mind . . . On Grand Strategy is a book that should be read by every American leader or would-be leader.” — John Nagl, Wall Street Journal
 
“Thought-provoking…The approach is highly idiosyncratic and the structure loose; it has something of the feel of a personal manifesto or intellectual memoir.” —Weekly Standard

“An extraordinary treatise on the need to teach the principles of sound strategy to today’s leaders…The book…is a rich one. It makes sense of our world, but is also capable of beautifully crafted pithy historical judgments…It is a book that cares about liberty, choice and a moral compass, that warns against the hubris of an angry Bonaparte on the turn in a Russian winter, against leaders who do not listen or learn. A training manual for our troubled times.”
—The Times (UK)

“A fine summary of the complex concepts explored in [Gaddis’s] Grand Strategy seminar, full of vivid examples of leadership and strategic thinking, from the Persian king Xerxes to Churchill’s and Roosevelt’s WWII strategies…Gaddis brings a deep knowledge of history and a pleasingly economical prose style to this rigorous study of leadership.”  —Publishers Weekly

“A capacious analysis of how leaders make strategic decisions…A lively, erudite study of the past in service of the future.” —Kirkus Reviews 


On The Cold War: A New History
 
“Outstanding . . . The most accessible distillation of that conflict yet written.” – The Boston Globe

“Energetically written and lucid, it makes an ideal introduction to the subject.” – The New York Times

“A fresh and admirably concise history . . . Gaddis’s mastery of the material, his fluent style and eye for the telling anecdote make his new work a pleasure.” – The Economist
 
 
On George F. Kennan: An American Life
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize
 
”Magisterial . . . [Kennan] bids fair to be as close to the final word as possible on one of the most important, complex, moving, challenging, and exasperating American public servants . . . We can be grateful to John Lewis Gaddis for bringing Kennan back to us, thoughtful, human, self-centered, contradictory, inspirational­—a permanent spur as consciences are wont to be. Masterfully researched, exhaustively documented, Gaddis’ moving work gives us a figure with whom, however one might differ on details, it was a privilege to be a contemporary.” – Henry A. Kissinger, New York Times Book Review
 
“[A] first-rate biography . . . Kennan’s life maps right onto twentieth-century political history, and no one is better qualified than Gaddis to lead the way through it . . . Gaddis has written with care and elegance, and he has produced a biography whose fineness is worthy of its subject.” –The New Yorker