Strategy

A History

By: Lawrence Freedman

Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray

Length: 32 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

In Strategy: A History, Sir Lawrence Freedman, one of the world's leading authorities on war and international politics, captures the vast history of strategic thinking, in a consistently engaging and insightful account of how strategy came to pervade every aspect of our lives. The range of Freedman's narrative is extraordinary, moving from the surprisingly advanced strategy practiced in primate groups, to the opposing strategies of Achilles and Odysseus in The Iliad, the strategic advice of Sun Tzu and Machiavelli, the great military innovations of Baron Henri de Jomini and Carl von Clausewitz, the grounding of revolutionary strategy in class struggles by Marx, the insights into corporate strategy found in Peter Drucker and Alfred Sloan, and the contributions of the leading social scientists working on strategy today. The core issue at the heart of strategy, the author notes, is whether it is possible to manipulate and shape our environment rather than simply become the victim of forces beyond one's control. Time and again, Freedman demonstrates that the inherent unpredictability of this environment - subject to chance events, the efforts of opponents, the missteps of friends - provides strategy with its challenge and its drama. Armies or corporations or nations rarely move from one predictable state of affairs to another, but instead feel their way through a series of states, each one not quite what was anticipated, requiring a reappraisal of the original strategy, including its ultimate objective. Thus the picture of strategy that emerges in this book is one that is fluid and flexible, governed by the starting point, not the end point. A brilliant overview of the most prominent strategic theories in history, from David's use of deception against Goliath, to the modern use of game theory in economics, this masterful volume sums up a lifetime of reflection on strategy.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2013 Lawrence Freedman (P)2014 Audible Inc.

Succinct millennia of evolution in strategy

This is a very articulate book summarize the growth of strategy over the course of a full millennia, from biblical times all the way to psychology and neuroscience today. It is a fantastic work in its comprehensiveness. One of the natural difficulties of a book like this is delving into the content deeply enough to really grasp the nuance of each character. Freedman was skilled at this. One fault is that the exploration of tangential topics requires of you an effort to maintain the connection back to strategy in your head, especially on audio.

Murray is a good reader with a natural credibility to his voice. I listen at 1.5x to listen at normal talking speed and at that page he sounds like a knowledgeable, likable friend.

I recommend this book. It is listenable and will expose you to the big players and their fundamental positions.

A couple of quick comments:

1. With a book this long, I recommend mapping out the primary characters and their positions afterwards to get a good grasp of the development and interplay and to help make sense of the vast amount of information.

2. The language is dense; for an audiobook this makes it tough to listen fluidly without rewinding on many occasions. I didn't find this to be too problematic however. I would keep in mind though that it might contribute to a listen 10% longer than the actual length of the audiobook.

Wonderful introduction to a slice of thinking

Wonderful! A nice Walkthrough riddled with beautiful anecdotes of famous thinkers. Love this and would recommend

history, detail, and recognition of reality

Any additional comments?

Narratively compelling, detail rich. Many books are either history or current affairs. It is a rare title that manages to tell real history and sucessfully transfer into relavant topics.

great read

long winded and sometimes mundane and dry. lots of information and great take on historical situations.

Drags Sometimes but Worth it

It's a book on strategy as well as its fallacies. A good read for potential mangers and business owners as it will teach you how strategy plays a role and how the word is inaccurately applied.

Excellent book

Don’t be discouraged by the length. Even though in the middle of it, you will say to yourself “Self, this book will never end”, you will be thankful when you reach the conclusion.
Invest the time, it’s worth it

A bit long but covers everything about strategy

From wars, to business and politics, covers all scenarios of strategy from ancient times to modern situations

Life is not chess, there are no correct moves

The author quotes John von Neumann (a developer of game theory among many other things) in the beginning of the book to the effect that the Game of Chess doesn't require a strategy because there is an exact mathematically correct move for every situation but for most other areas a correct strategy is not determinable. This book covers all those different areas in an encyclopedic fashion.

The book is a long read, but who among us can't devote thirty hours or more to such an interesting topic. The book is thematically arranged by area (war, politics, social sciences, business, and so on). He'll talk about the different strategies and almost always shows that they work until they don't.

The book illustrates how dangerous it is to just have intuition with a good narrative when developing a strategy while ignoring the empirical and reality. Reality is complex. Most of the time narratives will only get you so far.

Overall a long read, but worth it. There is a central narrative in the book, but sometimes the author didn't understand how to tie his stories together coherently.

How strategy evolved through historic failures.

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Definitely I would, the book doesn't just explore successful strategies, but concentrates on the failures, how they failed, and how they evolved. Freedman successfully sidesteps the "survivorship bias" by making how strategies fail a prominent feature of the book. Anyone who employs strategic thinking in their lives, work or otherwise, would benefit immensely from learning the history of what has already been tried, for better or worse, throughout recorded history.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Strategy?

The detailed account of the "wedge" strategy employed by proponents of the "Intelligent Design" movement to systematically undermine what they called "materialistic science", in order to remake science in an image consonant with their religious beliefs. I've read about intelligent design before, and I'm familiar with them, but gained a new perspective through the lens of political strategy, instead of debates & the debunking of pseudoscience.

What about Michael Butler Murray’s performance did you like?

His tone and range of inflection was good, keeping the long listen from turning into a sedative. I did notice him mispronouncing a number of the longer, more jargon type words, so don't always trust his pronunciation.

What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?

My favorite, perhaps most valued insight from this book (among many), was insight into how so many strategies have failed, following a common pattern of rigidity, bullheaded blindness to changes in the environment or refusing to revise a core principle, position or philosophy. From marxism to failed political campaigns and business strategies, this failure is so obvious once illuminated, yet remains common even today.

Any additional comments?

The use of recent advancements in cognitive neuroscience and psychology being applied to all fields of strategy, along with the values of the scientific method, was insightful, and very exciting.

A Mixed Bag

I found this book alternately enlightening and infuriating as it became an endurance contest to finish. I probably know about half of the topics that Freedman covers rather well. And where that was the case, I was dismayed by how light the treatment of the person/event/theory/etc. was. When he was in a period or aspect (business strategy, nuclear theory...) that I knew far less well, then it was great to soak in a lot of new ideas (maybe not so much for the business stretch, but I freely admit to personal bias there). Still, it was fascinating to see Thucydides, the suffragette movement, and the Rand Corp all on a continuum.
That said, the narrator drove me crazy. Words were butchered on far too regular a basis (and this was not a case of British vs US English). Who pronounces "anomalous" as though it rhymes with enamel-us?? Several times, I had to pause the book and review the words in my head as if on a page to detect the mistake. And when the great sociologist Max Weber dominates nearly 1/3 of a text, it behooves the narrator to say his name right. Ugh.
This was the closest I've ever come to returning a book to Audible. I didn't, though, and in the end, it gave me good food for thought. But I'm stubborn that way.