About this Item
First edition of Fuller's controversial, but in time influential, "big book on war", scarce and highly desirable in the dust jacket. Essentially a distillation the course of lectures developed by Fuller, as chief instructor, for the Staff College, Camberley. Moving away from the idea that character was the most important component for successful generalship he "introduced. a study of psychology, philosophy, and the influence of technology on weapons and tactics - subjects which had been conspicuous by the absence previously. In Fuller's view there was an intimate connection between war and society, 'to understand war. you must understand peace: the psychology of the people. the nature of their institutions, their industry, commerce, politics and finance'" (Reid, pp. 82-3). Inevitably the book was viciously reviewed by the military establishment whose representatives Fuller took such pleasure in goading. In the Army Quarterly Brig.-Gen. J. E. Edmonds, the Great War official historian, waspishly observed that "the danger of such a book is that the young should take it seriously". Even Fuller himself came to see that the books was flawed. "Like the curate's egg, it was only in parts good. I set out to do something which at the time I was not sufficiently equipped for mentally" he confessed to Jay Luvaas in 1963. Nonetheless, the wide-ranging investigation of the interrelationship of war and social forces initiated by The Foundations was the process that was to lead to Fuller's most far-sighted and enduring work: "For this reason it is difficult to dissent from Fuller's own observation [to Liddell Hart] in 1935: 'You are right. The Foundations of the Science of War, in spite of its many faults, is the best book I have written'" (p. 106). Brian Holden Reid, J. F. C. Fuller: Military Thinker, 1987 Octavo. Numerous diagrams in the text. Original light greenish blue remainder cloth, lettered in black on the spine and with a single fillet panel in black on the front board. With dust jacket. Spine mildly sunned through the jacket, foxing to fore-edge, and to the first few leaves front and back, free endpapers lightly browned, jacket lightly foxed overall, spine browned and with a couple of small pieces lacking head and tail with the loss of a few letters, old gummed paper reinforcement verso, otherwise a very good copy.
Seller Inventory # 144970
Contact seller
Report this item
