The Strategists: Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, Mussolini and Hitler

REVIEW BY ANDREW MULHOLLAND History is usually about people, while military strategy tends not to be, and can sometimes seem rather dry. This book by Phillips O’Brien reminds us that it is leaders who actually determine strategy, with all of their strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, it is useful to consider the strategic history of a given conflict through the lens of the leaders involved. This is what O’Brien has attempted for World War II, in a book that is part biography, part psychological profile, and part strategic history. For most of the conflict that is, as this is not a strategic history of the entire war: it does not, for example, address Japan’s leadership during th