The Mask of Command

New York: Penguin Books, 1988. Presumed First U. S. Paperback Edition, First printing. Trade paperback. Good. [14], 368, [2] pages. Wraps. Illustrations. Maps. Select Bibliography. Index. Slight wear to cover and spine edges. Sticker residue on the back cover. Ink notations and marks on several pages and on rep. Sir John Desmond Patrick Keegan OBE FRSL (15 May 1934 - 2 August 2012) was an English military historian, lecturer, writer and journalist. He wrote many published works on the nature of combat between prehistory and the 21st century, covering land, air, maritime, intelligence warfare and the psychology of battle. In 1960 Keegan took up a lectureship in military history at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, which trains officers for the British Army. He remained there for 26 years, becoming a senior lecturer in military history during his tenure, during which he also held a visiting professorship at Princeton University and was Delmas Distinguished Professor of History at Vassar College. Leaving the academy in 1986, Keegan joined the Daily Telegraph as a defence correspondent and stayed with the paper as defence editor until his death. He also wrote for the American conservative National Review Online. In 1998 he wrote and presented the BBC's Reith Lectures, entitling them War in our World. An exploration of four different military leadership styles (the heroic style of Alexander the Great, the anti-heroic style of the Duke of Wellington, the unheroic style of Ulysses S. Grant, and the false-heroic style of Adolf Hiter) and how they reflect their times. The author believes that a fifth type of leader will emerge in the nuclear age--a post-heroic leader, who acts only after clear, intellectual thought. Derived from a Kirkus review: In aid of an inescapable conclusion, Keegan offers a virtuoso appreciation of military leadership down through the ages. For most of history, Keegan argues, warriors who "carry forward others to the risk of their lives" could reveal only as much of themselves as their followers required; all else had to be concealed by a mask of command. To probe this essentially, theatrical mystique, he examines the careers of four celebrated exemplars—Alexander the Great, "a supreme hero" and accomplished actor whose "being and performance merged in his person"; Wellington, whom Keegan characterizes as an anti-hero for his carefully planned, matter-of-fact approach to waging war on behalf of a constitutional monarchy; Ulysses S. Grant, whose self-consciously unheroic generalship the author judges appropriate for a popular democracy; and, by contrast, Hitler, who yearned for transcendent glory but was forced to engage in false heroics because: the destructive power of contemporary weapons barred him from running the risks required to reach the traditional ideal. While Keegan focuses on just four remarkable commanders, he does not limit himself to their exploits and the societies that empowered them. In his interpretive profile of Grant, for example, he considers the implications of the so-called gunpowder revolution (which among other results made obsolete edged-weapon warfare) and the presumptive meritocracy that obtained in Napoleon's armies. In a truncated postscript, Keegan asserts that, in light of nuclear realities, the world can no longer afford dramatic, let alone heroic, leadership. Indeed, he maintains, modern states must seek out post-heroic captains willing and able to abjure victory in their management of military power. A challenging, forceful, and timely analysis of martial governance.