Perspectives on Strategy examines in depth five aspects of strategy.
Strategic thought and behaviour are explored and explained from the
perspectives of intellect, morality, culture, geography, and
technology. Each perspective has attracted persisting controversy.
Perspectives on Strategy is strongly complementary to the author's
previous book, The Strategy Bridge: Theory for Practice (OUP, 2010).
This new work takes a notably holistic view of strategic phenomena,
which serves as a master framework within which detailed examination
of strategic history and issues can usefully be pursued in the light
of particular perspectives. Foundational for the argument in
Perspectives on Strategy is the proposition that distinctive aspects
of strategy (e.g. ethics, culture, inter alia) can only be appreciated
properly when they are regarded in context. The author shares this
view with T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia), who wrote of the 'whole house of
war'. Perspectives on Strategy gratefully adapts Lawrence and writes
about the 'whole house of strategy'. The book insists that the nature
of strategy is best represented by a Venn diagram that shows
overlapping perspectives. Thus, the subject of each chapter is shown
as having meaning for, and in turn is influenced by, the subjects of
the other chapters. For example, the book explores the importance of
strategic ideas relative to the significance of the material weapons
of war. The author poses the hardest of questions pertinent to each
chosen perspective (e.g. do ideas matter more than muscle?--in
practice how robust is the ethical code with which warfare is
waged?--is geography destiny, as some theorists have claimed?--and do
technically superior weapons win wars?)Perspectives on Strategy
demonstrates that it is possible to look closely at strategic matters
from limited but arguably powerful perspectives, without being
captured by them. This book asks and answers the most challenging and
rewarding questions that can be posed in order to reveal the
persisting universal nature, but ever changing character, of strategy.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780191656002
Publisert
2020
Utgiver
Oxford University Press Academic UK
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter