Great Captains: A Course of Six Lectures Showing the Influence on the Art of War: of the Campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Cæsar, Gustavus Adolphus, Frederick, and Napoleon
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About this ebook
Each lecture focuses on a historically significant leader—namely Alexander, Hannibal, Cæsar, Gustavus Adolphus, Frederick, and Napoleon—and “aims to indicate briefly what we owe to the great captains, and to draw an intelligible outline of their careers.”
Dodge has utilized an abundance of sources of information, from Arrian’s Anabasis of Alexander to Jomini’s Life of Napoleon, and the book is illustrated with 21 maps.
Brevet Lt.-Col. Theodore Ayrault Dodge
Theodore Ayrault Dodge (May 28, 1842 - October 26, 1909) was an American officer and military historian. He fought as a Union officer in the American Civil War and, as a writer, was devoted to both the Civil War and the great generals of ancient and European history. Born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, he received a military education in Berlin and attended University College London and the University of Heidelberg. Returning to the United States in 1861, he promptly enlisted as a private in the New York volunteer infantry. Over the course of the Civil War, he rose to the rank of brevet lieutenant-colonel, losing his right leg at the Battle of Gettysburg. He served at the War Department from 1864 and was commissioned in the regular army in 1866. In 1870 he retired with the rank of major. His works on the Civil War include The Campaign of Chancellorsville (1881) and Bird’s Eye View of the Civil War (1883). Following retirement he lived in Boston before moving to Paris, where he died in 1909 at the age of 67.
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Reviews for Great Captains
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- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A series of lectures, presumably to American soldiers or cadets. Each Captain gets about 30 pages of detail and analysis, which gives room for only the briefest and general details. Alexander and Hannibal are examined primarily through the lenses of Hydaspes and Cannae, while the rest have their campaigns more completely described--I think Napoleon is described the most successfully, Gustavus or Frederick the least. In general the Captains are compared only indirectly, with few declarations of one or the other's superiority. (Frederick, for example, is proclaimed the best tactician.) The most interesting parts of each lecture are usually the last 8 or 10 pages of analysis, where there a few gems, while the overviews of campaigns and battles are too rushed and generalized to be satisfying, unless a quick overview is all that's desired.