The Blob and the Mob: On Grand Strategy and Social Change

In an excerpt from Rethinking American Grand Strategy, Beverly Gage examines how statecraft and social movements intersect

Means and Ends As other essays in this collection demonstrate, the idea of “grand strategy” emerged out of the world of military affairs. Under the famous rubric identified by British historian B. H. Liddell Hart, “strategy” was what generals did, while “grand strategy” fell to politicians and statesmen, charged not only with winning ...
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The Blob and the Mob: On Grand Strategy and Social Change

What Thucydides Can Teach Us

Ancient reflections on a time of plague

Coronavirus will end the Trump presidency – or it will boost his chances of reelection. COVID-19 will provoke a revolution – or it will restore trust in liberal democratic institutions. It will make us more distant – or it will bring us closer together. Thucydides, the ancient Athenian author of the History of the Peloponnesian War, ...
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What Thucydides Can Teach Us