Carl von Clausewitz, the Fog-of-War, and the AI Revolution: The Real World Is Not A Game of Go, by Rodrick Wallace (Springer, 2018). ISBN: 3319746324. The language of business is the language of dreams, but the language of war is the language of nightmare made real. Yet business dreams of driverless cars on intelligent roads, and of other real-time critical systems under the control of algorithmic entities, have much of war about them. Such systems, including military institutions at the tactical, operational and strategic scales, act on rapidly-shifting roadway topologies whose ‘traffic rules’ can rapidly change. War is never without both casualties and collateral damage, and realtime critical systems of any nature will inevitably partake of fog-of-war and frictional challenges almost exactly similar to those that have made warfare intractable for modern states. Into the world of Carl von Clausewitz, John Boyd, Mao Tse-Tung, Vo Nguyen Giap, and Genghis Khan, come the brash, bright-eyed techies of Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Uber who forthrightly step in where a phalanx of angels has not feared to tread—but has treaded very badly indeed. This book applies use cutting-edge tools from information and control theories to examine canonical and idiosyncratic failure modes of real-time cognitive systems facing fog-of-war and frictional constraints. In sum, nobody can ever navigate unscathed the landscapes described by Clausewitz.

Cognitive Dynamics on Clausewitz Landscapes: The Control and Directed Evolution of Organized Conflict. by Rodrick Wallace (Springer, 2020). ISBN: 3030264262. This book applies cutting-edge methods from cognitive and evolutionary theories to develop models of conflict between hierarchically-structured cognitive entities under circumstances of imprecision, uncertainty and stress. These were characterized as friction and the fog of war by the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz. Such conditions impair institutional cognition in real-time conflict and pose a real and continuing threat to organizations such as the US military. In a linked collection of formal essays and a mathematical appendix, the book explores different aspects of cognitive and evolutionary process as conducted under the direction of doctrine, which acts as a kind of genome for retention of what is learned through Lamarckian evolutionary selection pressures: that is, armies and corporate entities learn from conflict and incorporate that learning into their ongoing procedures. A central feature of the book is a formal description of the famous OODA loop of the US military theorist John Boyd in terms of the Data Rate Theorem that links control and information theories. A scientifically sophisticated exercise in applied mathematics, history, evolutionary theory, and ecosystem theory, this book is appropriate for researchers and students interested in defense, security, and international relations, as well for as non-academic career professionals in government and industry.

Clausewitz Gesellschaft, Hamburg, Clausewitz Goes Global: Carl von Clausewitz in the 21st Century, edited by Reiner Pommerin (Berlin: Miles Verlag, 2011). ISBN-10: 3937885412 /
ISBN-13 978-3937885414. This very useful anthology the development of Clausewitz studies in Austria, Belgium, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States.

Vanya Eftimova Bellinger, Marie von Clausewitz: The Woman Behind the Making of On War (Oxford University Press, 2015), ISBN: 0190225432. With the research skills of both a journalist and a serious scholar, Bellinger has done a spectacular job of tracking down sources where no one else had thought to look, in the process recovering some materials thought lost in World War II and others that were previously unknown. This is an important work in the field. Without the efforts of Countess Marie von Clausewitz, Carl von Clausewitz's crucial work on military theory and strategy—On War—would never have been published. This biography sheds enormous light on two extraordinary lives and minds, offering the first comprehensive and compelling look at the woman behind the composition of On War. In the process, it gives us a much richer view of her husband's personal evolution and thus of the deeper meaning behind many of his concepts.

Sibylle Scheipers, On small war: Carl von Clausewitz and people's war (Oxford University Press, 2018), viii + 174pp., ISBN: 978-0-19-879904-7. Clausewitz has long been interpreted as the paradigmatic thinker of major interstate war. This book challenges this assumption by showing that Clausewitz was an ardent analyst of small war and integrated many aspects of his early writings on partisan warfare and people's war into his magnum opus, On War. It reconstructs Clausewitz's intellectual development by placing it in the context of his engagement with the political and philosophical currents of his own times - German Idealism, Romanticism, and Humanism. Far from leaving behind his early advocacy of people's war, Clausewitz integrated it systematically into his mature theory of war. People's war was war in its existential form; it risked escalating into 'absolute war'. However, if the threat of defensive people's war had become a standard option of last resort in early-nineteenth century Europe, it could also function as a safeguard of the balance of power. Reviewed by James W. Davis, Contemporary Political Theory (2018). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41296-018-0272-x

Carl von Clausewitz, eds. Christopher Daase and James W. Davis, Clausewitz on Small Wars (Oxford University Press), 2015. 216 pages, ISBNs 0198737130, 978-0198737131. The editors have assembled and translated Clausewitz's most important texts devoted to the analysis of asymmetric, unconventional, guerrilla, and small-unit warfare, including Clausewitz's lectures on small war given at the Prussian War Academy in 1810 and 1811. These demonstrate that asymmetric warfare is not an historical development that can be termed pre-  or post-Clausewitzian, as many contemporary scholars of war and military strategy ahistorically assert. (That assertion would have been quite a surprise to Engels, Mao, or Giap.) Rather, Clausewitz himself emerges as an early theorist of insurgency and asymmetric warfare with insights that are relevant today.
CONTENTS:
1. Introduction
2. Lectures on Small War at the Prussian War College in 1810 and 1811
3. Testimonial (Bekenntnisdenkschrift)
4. On the Political Advantages and Disadvantages of the Prussian Institution of the Landwehr
5. The Arming of the People (Volksbewaffnung)

Reviewed by: Sibylle Scheipers for Small Wars & Insurgencies (includes a reply by the editors); Artemis Photiadou for LSE Review of Books; Simon Tyler for E-International Relations.

Clausewitz: His Life and Work. By Donald Stoker [Naval War College at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey]. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014, ISBN: 0199357943. Stoker notes that those discussing Clausewitz's legacy as a theorist today have largely forgotten what was most important to him: being a soldier. He also notes that, while Clausewitz certainly spilled his share of ink, he also spilled blood—his own and the enemy's. He experienced the mass warfare of his age and knew what it was like to be wounded, to be taken prisoner, to have friends killed and wounded, to suffer hunger and thirst, and to have the heat and cold try to kill him after the enemy's best efforts had failed. The pursuit of success on the field of battle, Stoker shows, is what drove Clausewitz. He also considers the continuing relevance of Clausewitz's work today.
    A quibble: Almost all of what we know of Clausewitz's personal frustrations was transmitted by his wife and editor, Marie, who magnified them in her own grief and frustration over his untimely death and what she, not her husband, felt to be insufficient recognition of his genius and service to Prussia. In what is probably an effort to appear balanced, Stoker gets a bit carried away in his criticisms of Clausewitz's perfectly normal career ambitions and efforts to get ahead professionally. This reflects a long tradition of efforts to psychoanalyze Clausewitz. That tradition continues forward despite the efforts of writers like Peter Paret and particularly Vanya Bellinger to expose the shaky foundation on which it rests.

Clausewitz in His Time: Essays in the Cultural and Intellectual History of Thinking About War. By Peter Paret. Berghahn, 2014. ISBN-10: 1782385819. ISBN-13: 978-1782385813. 134pp. Far from being a detached theorist, Carl von Clausewitz was as intensely aware of the cultural and intellectual currents of his time as he was engaged in its political and military conflicts. The society in which he lived and the people with whom he served affected the analytic method he developed in his writing and the conclusions he reached. The essays in this volume examine Clausewitz in comparison with teachers, friends, and opponents, a perspective enriched by significant documents which have been previously ignored. They deepen our knowledge of Clausewitz's life and how he enlarged his understanding of warfare from its mechanisms and the interaction of its elements to its apparently permanent place in the relation between states.

Reconsidering the American Way of War. By Antulio J. Echevarria. Georgetown University Press, 2014. ISBN 1626160678, 9781626160675) challenges several longstanding notions about the American way of war. It examines American military practice (strategic and operational) from the War of Independence to the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan to determine what patterns, if any, exist in the way Americans have used military force. It finds that American uses of force were driven more by political considerations than military ones and that the amount of force employed was rarely either overwhelming or decisive. To borrow from Clausewitz, the American way of war was as much an extension of US policy by other means, as it was the continuation of US politics by those means. Reconsidering the American Way of War also finds that most conceptions of American strategic culture are little more than elusive fictions—the notion of strategic culture cannot be reconciled with either change over time or change in time.

Clausewitz's Timeless Trinity: A Framework for Modern War. By Colin M. Fleming [U. Ediburgh, UK]. Ashgate (Military Strategy and Operational Art), 2013. ISBN-10: 140944287X, ISBN-13: 978-1409442875. Innovatively applying the Clausewitzian Trinity of 'passion, chance, and reason' to the experience of real war, Fleming explores the depth and validity of the concept against the conflicts of former Yugoslavia - wars thought to epitomise a post-Clausewitzian age. In doing so it demonstrates the timeless message of the Trinity, but also ties the Trinitarian idea back into Clausewitz's political argument.Intended to build on the existing corpus of scholarship, this book differs from the existing literature in two ways. By applying the Trinity to the wars of former Yugoslavia 1991-1995, it explores war at its micro-foundations, assessing the complex cause-and-effect nexus of reciprocity produced by actions between belligerents embroiled in dynamic competition perpetuated by their own interaction.

War, Clausewitz and the Trinity. By Thomas Waldman. Ashgate, 2013. ISBN 9781409451396. Today, the ideas of Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) are employed almost ubiquitously in strategic studies, military history and defence literatures, but often in a manner which distorts their true meaning. In this book, Waldman explores Clausewitz's central theoretical device for understanding war—the 'remarkable trinity' of politics, chance and passion. By situating the great Prussian in historical context, he presents a conception truer to Clausewitz's intention. Publisher's page: UK — US.

Clausewitz, The State and War. Editors Andreas Herberg-Rothe, Jan Willem Honig, and Daniel Moran. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2011. ISBN 978-3-515-09912-7. Clausewitz’s understanding of war was shaped by his understanding of the state, which he regarded as the central institution of modern life. His achievements as a theorist of war in turn clarify one of the state’s essential activities: the use of force to defend and advance its interests and values, and those of the society it governs. These diverse essays take Clausewitz’s ideas about the state as the starting point for analyzing the central issue posed by his work: the relationship between war in all its manifestations, and politics in all its forms. The modern state was the starting point for Clausewitz’s understanding of politics, but did not unduly confine his outlook, nor cause him to suppose that only states make war. Similarly, while it is the wars of states that provided most of the historical evidence on which his theoretical work rests, the implications of that work can be seen to encompass political violence in all its forms.

Clausewitz in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Hew Strachan and Andreas Herberg-Rothe (Oxford University Press, September 2007). ISBN: 0199232024. This is the proceedings of the March 2005 Oxford University conference on Clausewitz in the 21st Century. This is a stellar, multidisciplinary collection of essays that defines the current state of the art in Clausewitz studies. Kindle edition.
 
See discussion by Andreas Herberg-Rothe and Tony Echevarri; 2007 Review by James Woudhuysen in Spiked.

Clausewitz's On War: A Biography (Books That Changed the World). By Hew Strachan (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2006). ISBN: 0871139561. In this biography of the book On War (not of its author), Strachan, one of the world’s foremost military historians, offers some answers to many of the problems posed by Clausewitz's writings. He explains how and why On War was written, elucidates what Clausewitz meant, offers insight into the impact it has had on conflict, and evaluates its continued significance in our world today.

Clausewitz and Contemporary War. By Antulio J. Echevarria (Oxford University Press, 2007). ISBN: 0199231915. Tony Echevarria lays out Clausewitz's methodology and uses that as a basis for understanding his contributions. He addresses Clausewitz's theories concerning the nature of war, the relationship between war and politics, the major principles of strategy he examined, and their relationship to current debates over the nature of contemporary conflict. Kindle edition.

Clausewitz's Puzzle: The Political Theory of War. By Andreas Herberg-Rothe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). ISBN: 0199202699. Herberg-Rothe argues that Clausewitz developed a wide-ranging political theory of war by reflecting on the success, the limitations, and the failure of Napoleon's method of waging war, a theory, which is still relevant in light of contemporary conflict. The book lays down the foundation of a general theory of war by concentrating on Clausewitz's historical analyses of war campaigns. Also available in Chinese: 副标题: 战争的政治理论 (Huaxia Publishing House, 2020). ISBN: 9787508099026, which ls also available from Amazon.com.)

See reviews in English and German of the German edition. See the publication announcement from OUP. See listings in Amazon.UK, and in Oxford Scholarship OnLine.

State of Doom: Bernard Brodie, the Bomb, and the Birth of the Bipolar World. By Barry Scott Zellen (Continuum, 2011). ISBN: 1441124624. This book examines Bernard Brodie's strategic and philosophical response to the nuclear age, embedding his work within the classical theories of Carl von Clausewitz. Zellen is a Researcher at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, USA, where he is Research Director of the Arctic Security Project. The managing editor of Culture and Conflict Review and Strategic Insights journals, he has published several books, including On Thin Ice: The Inuit, the State and the Challenge of Arctic Sovereignty (Lexington Books, 2009) and Arctic Doom, Arctic Boom: The Geopolitics of Climate Change in the Arctic (Praeger, 2009).

Clausewitz and America: Strategic Thought and Practice from Vietnam to Iraq. By Stuart Kinross. (Routledge, 2008). ISBN: 041556963X. While many reviewers seem to regard Kinross's book as a long-overdue attack on Clausewitz, Kinross's actual views are a great deal more sophisticated than that view would imply. Clausewitz's ideas played a part in the process of military reform and the transition in US policy that took place after the Vietnam War. By the time of the 1991 Gulf War, American policy makers demonstrated that they understood the Clausewitzian notion of utilizing military force to fulfil a clear political objective. The US armed forces bridged the operational and strategic levels during that conflict in accordance with Clausewitz’s conviction that war plans should be tailored to fulfil a political objective. With the end of the Cold War, and an increasing predilection for technological solutions, American policy makers and the military moved away from Clausewitz. It was only the events of 11 September 2001 that reminded Americans of his intrinsic value. However, while many aspects of the ‘War on Terror’ and the conflict in Iraq can be accommodated within the Clausewitzian paradigm, the lack of a clear policy for countering insurgency in Iraq suggests that the US may have returned full circle to the flawed strategic approach evident in Vietnam.

Buy the best translation—recommended for serious readers. The Book of War (The Modern Library, February 2000). ISBNs: 0375754776, 9780375754777. Clausewitz and Sun Tzu in one book. The translation of Clausewitz's On War is the 1943 version done by German literary scholar O.J. Matthijs Jolles at the University of Chicago during World War II—not today's standard translation, but certainly the most accurate. The only flagrant error we're aware of is the Germanic (but incorrect) spelling of Clausewitz's first name with a 'K'—almost certainly the publisher's decision, not the translator's. Overall, the main problem with the Jolles translation is that it was made during Would War II and reflects anachronistic attitudes: Clausewitz's Prussia was not Nazi Germany. With an interesting introduction by contemporary military guru Ralph Peters. The version of Sun Tzu included is also excellent—this is the modern translation by Roger Ames, based on complete ancient texts found by archaeologists.

On War, by Carl von Clausewitz, trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Alfred A. Knopf, 1976/84). ISBN: 0679420436. This is the Everyman's Library edition, a very fine edition of the Howard/Paret translation. It is superior in some ways to the standard Princeton version, despite the H/P translation's fundamental weaknesses. However, the pagination is different, making it a bit more difficult to locate specific quotations, etc. If you're serious about reading Clausewitz in detail, read the much more accurate translation by O.J. Mattjis Jolles. See this discussion of the various English translations of Clausewitz's Vom Kriege.

Buy the standard English translation of Clausewitz's On War, by Michael Howard and Peter Paret  (Princeton University Press, 1976/84). ISBN: 0691018545 (paperback). Kindle edition. This quite readable translation appeared at the close of the Vietnam War and has become the modern standard. However, if you're serious about reading Clausewitz in detail, read the much more accurate translation by O.J. Mattjis Jolles—See it listed above or to the far left of this column. Even the Jolles edition suffers, however, from anachronistic attitudes toward Prussia/Germany at the time of translation (in Jolles' case, 1943.
  For background, see this discussion of the various English translations of Clausewitz's Vom Kriege.

Clausewitz and the State, 2nd edition. By Peter Paret (Princeton University Press, 2007). ISBN: 0691131309. The new edition of this classic 1976 work—the best biography of Clausewitz available in English—includes a preface that allows Paret to recount the past thirty years of discussion on Clausewitz and respond to critics. A companion volume to Clausewitz's On War, this book is indispensable to anyone interested in Clausewitz, his theories, and their proper historical context.

Clausewitz in English: The Reception of Clausewitz in Britain and America, 1815-1945, by Christopher Bassford (Oxford University Press, 1994). ISBN: 0195083830. Explores what soldiers, academics, and others in the English-speaking world were saying about Clausewitz between 1815 and the mid-1990s—and, more intriguingly, why. Not always a pretty tale. Buy a used version of this classic—the publisher's price is an outrage. And the full text is on-line free HERE.

"[A] startlingly worthwhile book.... Bassford tells a great story of dutiful struggle and pigheadedness, of petty revenge and epiphany, and, ultimately, of how Anglophone armies that read Clausewitz reluctantly beat the hell out of a German-speaking military that willfully read him wrong." (Ralph Peters)

On Waterloo: Clausewitz, Wellington, and the Campaign of 1815. Ed./trans. Christopher Bassford, Daniel Moran, and Gregory W. Pedlow (Clausewitz.com, 2010). ISBN: 1453701508. This book is built around a new and complete translation of Clausewitz's study "The Campaign of 1815: Strategic Overview," first published as Der Feldzug von 1815 in Frankreich (Berlin, 1835). It is vol. 8 of Clausewitz's collected works (Hinterlassene Werke des Generals Carl von Clausewitz über Krieg und Kriegführung). This study was written late in Clausewitz's life, after most of On War had already been drafted. Thus it reflects Clausewitz's most mature thinking but, unlike many of his earlier historical studies, its findings have not been incorporated into Clausewitz's magnum opus. Thus most readers will find it new material. The book also includes the responses of Wellington and his circle, as well as analytical essays by the editors.
  The full text and some extra resources—full-color maps, additional source documents, the original German text of Clausewitz's campaign study— are available on-line HERE. See reviews: MajGen/Dr. David T. Zabecki, The Journal of Military History, April 2011; Bruno Colson, "Clausewitz on Waterloo," War in History 19 (July 2012), pp.397-400.

*Decoding Clausewitz: A New Approach to On War (University Press of Kansas, 2008). By Jon Tetsuro Sumida. ISBN (hardcover): 9780700616169; (paperback) 0700618198. Sumida contends that Clausewitz's central value lies in his method of reenacting the psychological difficulties of high command in order to promote the powers of intuition that he believed were essential to effective strategic decision-making. Sumida also correctly notes Clausewitz's argument that the defense is a stronger form of war than the offense and goes on to argue that this is in fact his primary strategic proposition. This concept, Sumida maintains, must be understood in order to make sense of Clausewitz's positions on absolute and real war, guerrilla warfare, and the relationship of war and policy/politics. Here is the Preface and Table of Contents. Here is the preface to the (revised) paperback edition (2011). See Reviews.

Azar Gat, The Origins of Military Thought: From the Enlightenment to the Cold War (Oxford University Press, 2001). ISBN: 0199247625. Gat continues both to have some good ideas and to take all of his own ideas rather more seriously than either the nature of reality or the actual evidence can justify. His argument is that Clausewitz suddenly discovered, very late in his life, that war is an expression of politics. This discovery then drove Clausewitz to a nervous breakdown from which he never recovered. There is no actual evidence for this view, and a great deal of evidence against it, but it served to thoroughly confuse the debate over the meaning and intent of Vom Kriege.

Historical and Political Writings, by Carl von Clausewitz, trans. Peter Paret and Daniel Moran (Princeton University Press, 1992). ISBN: 0691031924. This companion volume to On War brings together some of Clausewitz's political writings and a selection of his historical works. This material reveals Clausewitz as an exceptionally independent observer both of the past and of his own times, distinguished by an unideological pragmatism and a keen sense of the possibilities and shortcomings of state power. Contents.

State of Doom: Bernard Brodie, the Bomb, and the Birth of the Bipolar World. By Barry Scott Zellen (Continuum, 2011). ISBN: 1441124624. This book examines Bernard Brodie's strategic and philosophical response to the nuclear age, embedding his work within the classical theories of Carl von Clausewitz. Zellen is a Researcher at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, USA, where he is Research Director of the Arctic Security Project. The managing editor of Culture and Conflict Review and Strategic Insights journals, he has published several books, including On Thin Ice: The Inuit, the State and the Challenge of Arctic Sovereignty (Lexington Books, 2009) and Arctic Doom, Arctic Boom: The Geopolitics of Climate Change in the Arctic (Praeger, 2009).

Azar Gat, The Development of Military Thought: The Nineteenth Century (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1992). This is a useful and important book, though Gat is uncommonly pompous even for an academic and tends to be impressed by his own insights to a profound but laughable degree. ISBN: 0198202466.

Cimbala, Stephen. Clausewitz and Escalation: Classical Perspectives on Nuclear Strategy. London: Frank Cass, 1991. Hardcover, 218pp. ISBN: 0714634204.

BUSINESS •  Carl von Clausewitz, Clausewitz On Strategy: Inspiration and Insight from a Master Strategist. Edited by Tiha von Ghyczy, Bolko von Oetinger, and Christopher Bassford. From the Boston Consulting Group's Strategy Institute Publisher: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN: 0471415138. • Hear audio ad • "Writers who use war as a metaphor for business have always been less than appealing to me. Maybe it's because, as some folks say, 'It's a 'guy' thing,' and I'm not a guy. On the other hand, I had trouble putting down Clausewitz on Strategy (Wiley, 2001), a publication of the Boston Consulting Group's Strategy Institute and edited by Tiha von Ghyczy, Bolko von Oetinger, and Christopher Bassford. In their carefully chosen selections from Clausewitz's On War and in their lengthy commentary in the introduction, these present-day strategists present much food for thought." (Marilyn Norris, Strategy & Leadership May/June 2001).

BUSINESS •  Stephen Bungay, The Art of Action: How Leaders Close the Gaps Between Plans, Actions and Results (Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2011). ISBN-10: 1857885597 ISBN-13: 978-1857885590. We hear increasingly that "strategy" is irrelevant and that all we really need is better execution. We're pretty sympathetic to the frustrations underlying that view, but the author of The Art of Action understands that strategy and execution are not separate domains. Stephen Bungay, who enjoys real credibility as a businessman (including 17 years with The Boston Consulting Group) and as a military historian (graduate work at Oxford and Tübingen) demonstrates a sophisticated grasp both of Clausewitz and Moltke's thinking and of how that thinking was reflected in practice by the German General Staff. Crucially, and unusually for writers who attempt to map the military domain to business, he genuinely understands that "business is not war."

Philosophers of Peace and War: Kant, Clausewitz, Marx, Engels and Tolstoy, by W. B. Gallie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978). ISBN 052129651X; 978-0521296519. From the book announcement: "Intellectual eminence apart, what did Kant, Clausewitz, Marx and Engels, and Tolstoy have in common? Professor Gallie argues that they made contributions to 'international theory'—to the understanding of the character and causes of war and of the possibility of peace between nations—which were of unrivalled originality in their own times and remain of undiminished importance in ours. But these contributions have been either ignored or much misunderstood."

Modern Strategy, by Colin Gray (Oxford, 1999). Hardcover ISBN: 0198280300. Softcover ISBN: 0198782519. Gray is considered by many to be the foremost Clausewitzian writer on strategic affairs today.

Masters of War: Classical Strategic Thought, by Michael Handel (Cass, 3rd ed, 2001). ISBN: 0714681326. Handel's work compares the thoughts of Sun Tzu, Jomini, and Clausewitz.

War, Politics, and Power. Selections from On War, and "I Believe and Profess." By Carl von Clausewitz, translated and edited by Edward M. Collins (COL, USAF) (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1962). Softcover, 209pp. ISBN: 0895264013. This is a Cold War treatment that includes a translation of Clausewitz's famous “Bekenntnisdenkschrift,” or memorandum of confession, of 1812 in which he insisted on “a Spanish civil war in Germany.” Clausewitz outlined a comprehensive guerrilla strategy against Napoleonic France and supported his view with theoretical reflections about the nature of defence and offence.

Clausewitz: A Biography. By Roger Parkinson (New York: Stein and Day, 1971). Reissued 2002. This book is poorly regarded by many for its poor grasp of Clausewitz's theories and for some historical errors, but it does have some strengths in covering Clausewitz's personal life and battlefield military experiences. It has largely been superceded by Vanya Bellinger's outstanding biography of Marie von Clausewitz and Donald Stoker's Clausewitz: His Life and Work. which focuses on Clausewitz's practical military experiences. Softcover ISBN: 0815412339.

The Cognitive Challenge of War: Prussia, 1806. By Peter Paret (Princeton University Press, 2009). ISBNs: 069118335X; 978-0691183350. This book traces Napoleon's victory over Prussia in 1806 and Prussia's effort to recover from defeat to show how in one particular historical episode operational analyses together with institutional and political decisions eventually turned defeat to victory. In the concluding chapter, Paret addresses the impact of 1806 on two men who fought on opposing sides in the campaign and sought a new theoretical understanding of war—Henri Jomini and Carl von Clausewitz. Reviewed by Jennie Kiesling [USMA].

Carl von Clausewitz, Principles of War. This is a reprint of the 1942 Hans Gatzke translation. Dover Books. ISBN: 0486427994. This text is free on-line HERE.

Carl von Clausewitz, The Campaign of 1812 in Russia, trans. anonymous [Francis Egerton, Lord Ellesmere], London: J. Murray, 1843. Foreword by Gerard Chaliand. This reprint publication, one of many, is from Blue Crane Books and dated 1996/2019. Softcover, 148pp. ISBN: 0962871583.Another version of this text is available free on-line. A better translation, partial and available only in print, but with much better background information, can be found in Clausewitz, Historical and Political Writings, eds./trans. Peter Paret and Daniel Moran (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992, pp.110-205.

Reading Clausewitz. By Beatrice Heuser. Paperback - 320 pages (Pimlico, 2002) ISBN: 071266484X. This is a wide-ranging but rather shallow study—in the tradition of the "staff-college crammer"—on how to read Clausewitz and how others have read him, from the military commanders in World War One through Lenin and Mao Zedung to strategists in the nuclear age. Designed for Staff College students. See review.

Carl von Clausewitz, The Campaign of 1812 in Russia. trans. anonymous [Francis Egerton, Lord Ellesmere], London: J. Murray, 1843. Hardcover, 260pp. Publisher: DaCapoPress. This is yet another reprint of Clausewitz's 1812 study, this one dated 1995. ISBN: 0306806509. Another version of this text is available free on-line. A better translation, partial and available only in print, but with much better background information, can be found in Clausewitz, Historical and Political Writings, eds./trans. Peter Paret and Daniel Moran (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992, pp.110-205.

Michael Howard. Clausewitz. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983. Textbook Paperback, "Past Masters" series, 79th ed., 79pp. ISBN: 0192876074. Sir Michael Howard held the Chair of War Studies at King's College London, the Chichele Chair of History of War and the Regius Chair of Modern History at Oxford, and the Robert A. Lovett Chair of Military and Naval History at Yale. His works include The Franco-Prussian War, The Causes of Wars, War and the Liberal Conscience, The Lessons of History, and War in European History. Together with Peter Paret he edited and published an new translation of Clausewitz's On War in 1976.

Michael I. Handel, ed. Clausewitz and Modern Strategy. London: Frank Cass, 1986. Hardcover, 324pp. ISBN: 0714632945. Softcover 0714640530. This is a useful anthology that was very influential in the 1980s. Click here for a list of its contents.

Michael Howard, Clausewitz: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2002), ISBN: 0192802577. Sir Michael Howard held the Chair of War Studies at King's College London, the Chichele Chair of History of War and the Regius Chair of Modern History at Oxford, and the Robert A. Lovett Chair of Military and Naval History at Yale. His works include The Franco-Prussian War, The Causes of Wars, War and the Liberal Conscience, The Lessons of History, and War in European History. Together with his student Peter Paret he edited and translated Clausewitz, On War in 1976. This is a convenient introduction. However, it now reflects a rather dated and traditional—though very positive—view of Clausewitz.

Raymond Aron, trans. Christine Booker and Norman Stone, Clausewitz: Philosopher of War (Simon & Schuster/Touchstone Books, 1985; Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1985). 418pp. ISBNs: 0671628267, 9780671628260. Originally Penser la guerre, Clausewitz [Volume 1, L'âge européen, & Volume 2, L'âge planétaire (Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1976)]. Raymond Aron (1905–1983) was an extremely influential French sociologist, journalist, political scientist, and philosopher. This is a notoriously poor translation. Most reviewers advise the reader to read the book in the original French—even if they can't read French.

Coker, Christopher J. Rebooting Clausewitz: On War in the 21st Century (Oxford University Press, 2017). 272pp. ISBNs: 978-0190656539, 0190656530. From the review by R. Gerald Hughes and Alexandros Koutsoukis: "Should anybody doubt whether Clausewitz could tell us any more about small wars, they would be well advised to read Christopher Coker's thoughts on the matter in his new book. Coker, a professor at the London School of Economics, weighs into the debates on Clausewitz on all fronts.... [He] asserts that, despite his notoriety, the role of politics in Clausewitz’s worldview has never been accorded due prominence.... He approached, then, what we, roughly speaking, would call the political ideology identified as ‘realism’ today. This interpretation of the issue might not be appealing for those of us who remain committed to general moral principles to judge war regardless of place or time. But Clausewitz’s central insight about the role of politics in preventing the escalation of conflicts and putting limits to military action might still be very useful."

Hugh Smith, On Clausewitz: A Study of Military and Political Ideas (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). 272pp. ISBN-10: 1403935866, ISBN-13: 978-1403935861. Clausewitz is often quoted but more often misunderstood. On Clausewitz presents his central ideas about war and politics—such as war as an instrument of policy, the concept of Absolute War, friction and the fog of war—in a clear and systematic fashion. It also presents the man, his life and the military and intellectual environment in which he produced his great work On War. The book tends to stress the limitations on Clausewitz's thought based on the era in which he worked. A final section considers Clausewitz's relevance to the rapidly changing character of war today.