On War (Volume 1)
Carl Von Clausewitz
Read by Timothy Ferguson
A classic work on military strategy by a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars. The author's style is dialectical: he makes two strong but opposing statements and then draws them together to describe many facets of war. Free of technical jargon, and suitable for modern readers. This audiobook is based on a 1909 English translation.
In section 2, the reader Timothy Ferguson was assisted by Linda Ferguson.
Chapters
Reviews
19th C Classic On War, very well read
Justin Mor
The reader has read the entire work (this volume and the 2 others) in a marathon effort of 33 hours reading. He's to be complimented and thanked for it as it's very clearly and articulately read. The work itself aspires to theorize systematically about the subject of war as known in the mid 19th century, referring to previous generals and conquerors, particularly Napoleon and Frederick the Great. It's still an influential work; but this may be for the worse as in its ideas about the efficacy of war for achieving one way security and positive and profitable outcomes one can see a root of 20th C war-mongery. It's very interesting for revealing the phlegmatic approach as if it is a technical operation. It's very long and becomes less systematic and rambling as it goes on but a lot of thought has gone into it. It has the flaw of not engaging the sort of moral and social dynamics that prefigure and make it possible to establish states and raise armies in the first place. I found it very interesting and very imbalanced; overworked with technicalities and deficient in moral evaluation of drives and sources of enduring success or failure in and from war.
A note from the reader:
Timothy Ferguson
This is only volume 1 of the three volumes of this work. Volumes two and three (in a single recording) are here: https://archive.org/details/on_war_vol2and3_1403_librivox
Great Reader
Caitlin
The reader does a great job of making the book understandable
great reader of an important historic artefact
Jon Mark Wilson
I deduct half a star only because I don't find Clausewitz quite so persuasive and exhaustive as he is repetitive. Still, many of his insights regarding criticism apply across the broad horizon of the social sciences, which were emerging as fields of academic study at the time he was writing. I am motivated to revisit the military histories of Frederick and Napoleon and their opponents, the details of which he assumes rather than describes.
A Brilliant book!
catrosenight
Timothy has brought this book to life! I'd definitely recommend it!
Fantastic sums up how I rate it
Kim Hansen
Fantastic good voice one of my absolute books here
A LibriVox Listener
an excellent piece of military literature which is quite well read here
on war
Kyle
Excellent narration, really a labor of love