RaveThe Washington PostGaddis renders nuanced verdicts on an eclectic cohort of thinkers, writers, monarchs and conquerers, including Machiavelli, Carl von Clausewitz, Cicero, the Roman Empire of Mark Antony and Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus, Tolstoy, Shakespeare, the Oxford political philosopher Isaiah Berlin, and the Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu, whom the author marginalizes with sly derision for his imprecise generalizations ... Gaddis has indisputably earned the right to plow different fields of historical inquiry, which he does in On Grand Strategy with self-evident glee and peripatetic curiosity ... examples of misapplied strategic ambition and miscalculated military intervention are the most illuminating in the author’s elegantly composed study. They bind ancient and modern history to provide practical guidance to the contemporary strategist.
Alexander Klimburg
MixedThe Washington PostIt’s unfortunate that Klimburg’s book is diffuse, unfocused and feathered with egocentric first-person flourishes. Had the author presented his thoughts with more discipline and concision, his arguments might have had more impact. For the tale he tells is a chilling one ... his treatment of Russia’s vision of the Internet and its hyper-aggressive quest for supremacy in cyberspace still constitutes the most illuminating and absorbing passages in The Darkening Web ... The Darkening Web would be a better book if its six disjointed sections and 19 chapters, including a conclusion and epilogue, were substantially restructured and compressed.
