On Grand Strategy is a primer for aspiring grand strategists. As Gaddis, channeling Machiavelli, might put it, “It is not possible for me to make a better gift than to offer you the opportunity of understanding in the shortest time all that I have learnt in so many years.” The text is closely adapted from the author's Yale undergraduate seminar, with the shortcomings that origin might suggest. Certainly many chapters present important lessons: from Thucydides, we learn the importance of seeing the whole picture; from Clausewitz and Tolstoy, the inherent limitations of theory. Yet the book's greatest strength—that its lessons can be applied widely to the real world—is also its greatest weakness. It explores how to think about strategy but leaves readers to figure out for themselves how to put it into practice.
