The Strategists: Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, Mussolini, and Hitler--How War Made Them and How They Made War

by Phillips Payson O'Brien

Overview

Churchill. Hitler. Stalin. Mussolini. Roosevelt. Five of the most impactful leaders of WW2, each with their own individualistic and idiosyncratic approach to warfare. But if we want to understand their military strategy, we must first understand the strategist.

In The Strategists, Professor Phillips Payson O'Brien shows how the views these five leaders forged in WW1 are crucial to understanding how they fought WW2. For example, Churchill's experiences of facing the German Army in France in 1916 made him unwilling to send masses of British soldiers back there in the 1940s, while Hitler's mistakes on the Eastern Front were influenced by his reluctance to accept that conditions had changed since his own time fighting. The implications of the power of leaders remain with us to this day: to truly understand what is happening in Ukraine, for example, requires us to know what has influenced the leaders involved.

This is a history in which leaders—and their choices—matter. For better or worse.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781524746483
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/27/2024
Pages:	544
Sales rank:	102,346
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.41(d)

About the Author

Phillips Payson O'Brien is a Professor of Strategic Studies at the University of St. Andrews in Fife, Scotland. Born and raised in Boston, he graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, before working on Wall Street for two years. He earned a PhD in British and American politics and naval policy before being selected as Cambridge University's Mellon Research Fellow in American History, and a Drapers Research Fellow at Pembroke College. Formerly at the University of Glasgow, he moved to St. Andrews in 2016. O’Brien is the author of The Second Most Powerful Man in the World and How the War Was Won.

Editorial Reviews

★ 06/17/2024

In this captivating study, historian O’Brien (The Second Most Powerful Man in the World) probes the formative experiences of Winston Churchill, Josef Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt, Benito Mussolini, and Adolf Hitler for insight into the decisions they made during WWII. He focuses on their wartime exploits or childhood ideas about military conflict that, according to O’Brien, had ramifications for their strategic thinking. They include FDR’s schoolboy fascination with naval history, which led to a career in the navy and his later certainty as president that a powerful navy would “determine the outcome” of any war; Hitler’s stint in the infantry during WWI, which resulted in his “constant focus on heavy artillery” as dictator, ensuring that, even as tactics and technology rapidly modernized, “his understanding of war stuck in the trenches”; and Stalin’s hard-won adaptability—painstakingly cultivated during his years fighting in the Russian revolution—which allowed him to maneuver the Soviet Union from the Axis to the Allied side. O’Brien’s fluid prose makes for enchanting reading; there’s never a dull moment (while working as a substitute teacher, Mussolini “could be seen walking angrily around town wearing a large black hat and a black tie, scaring the locals”; elsewhere, O’Brien notes it’s a good thing “Churchill was not born into a meritocracy, or else he would have achieved little”). For military history buffs, this is a must-read. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

Phillips Payson O’Brien is one of our finest historical thinkers. The Strategists shows him at the height of his powers: a book full of deep perception, convincingly challenging many entrenched views and examining these five leaders that so shaped the modern world in an entirely fresh, brilliantly insightful and utterly compelling way. Everyone with an interest in not just the Second World War, but the twentieth century and beyond, should read this without delay.” —James Holland, author of Normandy ’44

"An exploration of grand strategy. Compelling." —Kirkus

“[A] captivating study. . . .  O’Brien’s fluid prose makes for enchanting reading; there’s never a dull moment . . . . For military history buffs, this is a must-read." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

From the Publisher

2024-05-11
Bookshelves groan with accounts of the iconic national leaders of World War II, but this is a worthy addition.

O’Brien, author of The Second Most Powerful Man in the World, offers an exploration of grand strategy: decisions by a supreme authority for actions beyond the command of military forces. Readers will learn more from stand-alone biographies of the author’s five subjects, but he provides solid overviews of their decision-making processes. All maintained that they intended to eschew the mistakes made by leaders during World War I. However, despite innumerable proclamations that “what they were doing was in the best interests of their people,” notes the author, “they were mostly doing what they wanted to do, and used the idea of national interest to justify their decisions, not to make them.” Hitler’s hyperaggressive strategy was positively suicidal. Wars are won with superior resources, which Germany lacked, and logistics, which Hitler ignored. Victories against weaker opponents (Poland, France) unhinged him, and his disastrous micromanagement of battlefield operations continued to the infamous end. Stalin, a thuggish figure who rose to power by making himself indispensable to Lenin and murdering his rivals, also micromanaged his army after the 1941 German invasion, with equally disastrous results. Unlike Hitler, however, he learned from his mistakes and stepped back, allowing for “greater collective decision-making.” Perhaps the most pathetic grand strategist was Mussolini, who shared Hitler’s charisma and brutal nature but failed miserably in his effort to make Italy a great power. “After December 7, 1941,” writes O’Brien, “neither Franklin Roosevelt nor Winston Churchill had any doubts about the outcome” of the war. Having learned the right lessons, they concentrated on technology and machines, avoided massive infantry engagements, and emphasized control of the air and seas to ensure that their vastly superior resources would swamp the enemy.

Familiar stories but still compelling.

Kirkus Reviews