ABSTRACT
When everybody professes to love peace, one must detach oneself from the spirit of our times to be able to appreciate the qualities of the mind of a writer who leaves aside all humanitarian concerns in order to devote himself to the task of discovering the most effective methods of waging war. Perhaps the most deserving of continued attention is Clausewitz's most famous dictum translated in older editions as 'war is the continuation of politics', and which in the present edition is rendered as 'war is merely the continuation of policy by other means'. On War deserves its place as a great classic. This is even more the case with Bernard Brodie, who has supplied the third introduction as well as the 'Guide to the Reading of On War' appended at the end of the book, and whose attitude to Clausewitz strikes the author as almost verging on the kind of ancestor-worship with which the Marxists surround their totem.
