The Past, the Present, and the Study of War
Oxford University Press, 2024, ISBN 9780192867124, 258 pp
By: Michael PM Finch
Reviewed by: Nick Bosio
As highlighted in other reviews and works, one book is often compulsory reading at staff, war and civilian strategy colleges around the world: The Makers of Modern Strategy.[1] Up to its third edition, this book continues a fine tradition in strategic studies: leveraging both the history of strategic action and the history of strategic theory to inform contemporary thinking.[2] Yet this book does more than inform the strategist. The Makers of Modern Strategy played a significant role in shaping modern war and strategic studies.
Making Makers: The Past, the Present, and the Study of War is more than a book about a book. In Making Makers, Michael Finch tells the story of the first Makers of Modern Strategy (known as Makers), the attempts to write a revised version, and the successful second edition edited by Peter Paret. The book is also the story of the 20th century revolution in applied history within war studies, the development of the discipline of strategic studies, and the relevance of applied history to military and strategic art. Finch traces these developments from Hans Delbrück, Edward Earle (lead editor of the first Makers), Michael Howard and Paret, through to contemporaries such as Lawrence Freedman, Beatrice Heuser and Hew Strachan. Each chapter of Making Makers outlines both the development of Makers and the emergence of the structure, explicit canon, applied history methodology, and founding concepts of the disciplines of war and strategic studies. Underpinning these disciplines is the understanding that:
since [war] is the concern of all the people, all the people must realize that it is their concern. In wartime this involves a total effort; in time of peace, as in time of war, it demands wide understanding.[3]
Exploring the development of contemporary war and strategic studies means that Making Makers is an important contribution to the professions of arms and strategic art. As the above quote implies, war is more than the clash of armed forces. War occurs within a socio-political and cultural dynamic that must be understood as much as the military action. Therefore, the study of war must be grounded within the study of a war’s surrounding political, social and cultural elements. Although such understanding is not necessarily new, Finch’s work traces the re-emergence of such thinking in the late 1800s and early 1900s through the efforts of Delbrück in Germany. However, it is in Britain that these views took root. Building on a history studies tradition that saw history as ‘not only a professional discipline, but also an education for public life’, British academics laid the foundation for applied history in modern thinking.[4] These academics also stated:
Military history … is the effort to understand war, to get to know what war is and what it means. [It can only be achieved by studying] as many wars as possible, in order by comparison between them to learn what features and characteristics they have in common, whether the events which composed them happened at random, or whether they happened as they did by reason of some inherent necessity.[5]
Finch’s examination demonstrates how the key tenets of war and strategic studies developed. The contemporary normalisation of many war studies concepts, such as the nature and character of war and the intrinsic links between war and politics, are grounded in the early developments that led to the first edition of Makers. Even Howard’s guidance on the study of war and history (study it in context, depth and width) can be seen in the thinking that led to the first Makers.[6] Underpinning these early developments are three themes: history must be studied by all, history can be used to test one’s thinking, and applied history supports decision-making. As Finch outlines, each edition of Makers—including the failed attempts in the 1960s and 1970s to revise the book—codifies these themes as key tenets of the disciplines of war studies and strategic studies. These two disciplines are foundational to the profession of arms.
All disciplines change over time. Making Makers helps illustrate these changes and who influenced them. One example is the morphing of the definition of strategy from a purely military concept to one of national import.[7] Another is how the study of military history transitioned from a parochial focus on descriptive battles and leading figures towards a broader approach that includes ‘linking war to societies in which it was waged and locating itself further from the battlefield’.[8] Although such historical analysis often occurred before the 19th century, the transition back to such broader approaches enabled the growth of professional military education, war studies and strategic studies. Understanding how ideas evolve helps professionals better comprehend the contemporary challenges of their respective disciplines and professions.
Making Makers also tells of challenges that continue to plague contemporary military professionalism. Part of the story of Makers and the contemporary disciplines of war and strategic studies is the push and counter-push to educate military officers better. Such education should be scaffolded, structured, and grounded in the first-principle theories of the military arts—underpinned by war studies, strategic studies and the humanities. It is the study of military history, or ‘military art case studies’, that helps military officers understand the dynamic theory of war. Such study is also a key component of translating that theory into practice. While Making Makers reinforces the above, it also echoes many other scholars by highlighting how the counter-push against deep military education is often led by the military itself. Therefore, Making Makers is also the story of how those seeking to enhance the study of war must often overcome the military’s desire to insert additional training, military science or other directed topics into military education curricula at the expense of military history and theory.
By telling the story of Makers, Finch’s Making Makers shows some of the ‘behind the scenes’ development of the contemporary professions of arms and strategy. Military theory and war studies are uncodified disciplines whose concepts, structures and ideas are shaped by influential theorists, their works, and the interpretation of those works over time.[9] Making Makers highlights the arguments, challenges and divergent views that led to many of the founding ideas taken for granted today. Through this story, Making Makers gives insight into how select influential theorists and personalities have been identified, and how such selection has shaped contemporary military theory and thinking. Therefore, this work will be a valuable addition to the library of any professional with an interest in the development of the profession of arms, professional military education and the shaping of ideas over time.
Endnotes
[1] Nicholas J Bosio, ‘Book Review—The New Makers of Modern Strategy’, Australian Army Journal XX, no. 1 (2024).
[2] The second and third editions represent this best. As Finch highlights in the work, the editors recognised that the theory of strategy is founded as much on the practice of strategy as it is on the explicit writings of theorists. See Michael Finch, Making Makers: The Past, the Present, and the Study of War (New York NY: Oxford University Press, 2024), p. 184.
[3] Edward Earle, Makers of Modern Strategy: Military Thought from Machiavelli to Hitler (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1943), ‘Introduction’, cited in Finch, Making Makers, p. 13.
[4] Hew Strachan, ‘The Study of War at Oxford’, in Christopher Hood, Desmond King and Gillian Peele (eds), Forging a Discipline: A Critical Assessment of Oxford’s Development of the Study of Politics and International Relations in Comparative Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), p. 208, cited in Finch, Making Makers, p. 26.
[5] H Spenser Wilkinson, The University and the Study of War (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909), p. 9, cited in Finch, Making Makers, pp. 26–27.
[6] See Michael Howard, ‘The Use and Abuse of Military History’, Parameters 11, no. 1 (1981).
[7] Finch, Making Makers, pp. 187–188.
[8] Ibid., p. 42.
[9] Nicholas J Bosio, ‘An Analysis of the Relationship between Contemporary Western Military Theory, Systems Thinking, and their Key Schools-of-Thought’, PhD thesis, Australian National University, 2022), pp. 66–67, at: http://hdl.handle.net/1885/260048.
