On Grand Strategy

February 19, 2018
Yale historian Gaddis (George F. Kennan: An American Life) draws on decades of teaching to produce a fine summary of the complex concepts explored in his 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. Leaning on political theorist Isaiah Berlin’s work for this study’s intellectual backbone, Gaddis takes his central metaphor from Berlin’s epigraph: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” The book shows the pitfalls of “hedgehog” leadership, which inflexibly concentrates on “one big thing,” often with disastrous results. Xerxes’s 480 B.C.E. invasion of Greece and the Spanish king Philip II’s ceaseless quest to return Catholicism to England, culminating with the Spanish Armada’s 1588 defeat, are prime examples. In contrast, Pericles’s early leadership of Athens and Abraham Lincoln’s presidency are likened to the fox’s knowledge of “many things.” That knowledge, of one’s ultimate objectives, capabilities, and limitations, and of conditions that present opportunities, gives great leaders flexibility and a sense of proportionality that support grand strategy: “the alignment of potentially infinite aspirations with necessarily limited capabilities.” Gaddis brings a deep knowledge of history and a pleasingly economical prose style to this rigorous study of leadership.

The title of this audiobook sounds as though it should be about war or global politics or something else grand. But while Gaddis draws his examples from war and great political issues, the conclusions he draws about how to plan strategically can be applied to everyday life. As Gaddis is discussing such noteworthies as the Greek general and statesman Pericles, narrator Mike Chamberlain keeps his voice clear and light. Without imitating or creating voices, he marks off longer quotations with pauses and lets context clarify shorter ones. Overall, Chamberlain sounds like a well-read friend who monopolizes the dinner conversation because he really is the most interesting guest. And what he has to say--about history, politics, war, and personal identity--is very interesting indeed. D.M.H. � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine