Strategy: A History

Encyclopedic. This book is a masterpiece of cultural review; Freedman covers (elegantly) an absurd array of historical content, across military history from the Bible to present day, military history, business history, and so much in between. I’m not sure I’ve read a more ambitious non-fiction book yet; Freedman essentially writes an agile, almost quilted biography of what feels like hundreds of critical figures, all while injecting his own genius insights between the pages. Reading this slowly and deliberately, as it demands, takes time; it feels like I was lugging this around in my bookbag for ages.

Freedman’s conclusions, at the close of such a massive analysis, are perhaps counterintuitive to some. I won’t ruin them for those considering reading the book, but Freedman brings forth a common theme — storytelling — that stitches together nearly all of his disperse examples.