A number of publications have seen it fit to review, or to comment about Nothing Less than Victory.
The Wall Street Journal noted my concern with how wars end, not only with the causes of wars (“Winning is the Only thing,” Wall Street Journal, Feb. 3, 2011, A13). “What distinguishes the latest volumes,” they write of my book and two others, “is their agreement that decisive military victory has become an increasingly discredited aim. . . . Where today’s writers disagree is about why this has happened. For Mr. Lewis, a classicist and a philosopher, this consensus reflects a willful misreading of the historical record and a misunderstanding of how victory shapes a lasting peace.” With this assessment I agree.
In Military Officer, the official magazine of the Military Officers Association of America (October 2010, p.23), William D. Bushnell writes:
“Soldiers and statesmen have long argued over how to both win a war and provide a lasting peace afterward. Historian John David Lewis offers a provocative answer–launch an aggressive offense focused on the enemy’s will to fight, not his capability.
“In this thoughtful and well-presented book, Lewis claims a defensive strategy only prolongs the carnage and results in stalemate and greater instability.”
Here are some other reviews of Nothing Less than Victory:
US News and World Report, Washington Book Club
Five Books (5 Books on War and Foreign Policy: Interview)
Voices for Reason, The Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights
National Review On-Line (Podcast)
Campaign for the American Reader
The Liberal Institute (Interview)
Learn about the magnificent drawing on the cover!
Read an excerpt (the Introduction)
Order Nothing Less than Victory from Amazon
More about Nothing Less than Victory
“John David Lewis has offered a superb appraisal of how ancient and modern wars start and finish. This chronicle of some 2,500 years of Western history is replete with a philosophical analysis of why nations fight, win—and lose. His insights and conclusions are original and fearless—as well as timely and welcome in the confused war-making of the present age.”
—Victor Davis Hanson, author of Carnage and Culture