Clausewitz's On War: A Biography

Carl von Clausewitz’s On War, first published in Germany after the Napoleonic Wars, is perhaps the most important book on military strategy ever written. It has influenced generations of generals and politicians, has been blamed for the unprecedented death tolls in the First and Second World Wars, and is still required reading at military academies to this day.

But On War, which was never finished and was published posthumously, is obscure and fundamentally contradictory. What Clausewitz dec...