Customer Reviews

Castles, Battles, and Bombs: How Economics Explains Military History

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This pioneering work is not a military history narrative, though much of it there is, but the application of economic principles and theory to select socio-military developments in history, seeking to demonstrate the clarity of analysis the rigor of such application can bring to a field which seems to have hitherto lacked much formal structure. The famed WWI Schlieffen Plan (there's controversy about the extent to which the Germans actually implemented it fully, but the authors take it as given) provides the springboard for a discussion of opportunity costs (the real cost of X is the Y you are giving up by doing X) as applied to the strategic and operational choices in WWI to which are added the assymetries in information between combatants. The authors use the Schlieffen Plan analysis to introduce their methodology, a good and clear starting point because there is an actual war-making plan involved. Having thus established a an analytical template, they go back in history to medieval times and move forward with particularly interesting sections on the American Civil War, the strategic bombing campaign of Germany during WWII, France's decision to develop nuclear weapons, and, of contemporary interest but not really based on contemporary choices, the long history of "condottieri" (private contractors) to wage war ("provide security"). Afghanistan and Iraq are not covered as those theatres are still active, so it is premature to draw conclusions.

One learned in school that an objective of theory is to reduce variables to a meaningful few. This work is positing a template for military historiography (though, not an exclusive one). In the process, the authors are truly compelling in their advocacy of looking at war with the tools of economic analysis, for a simpler, keener understanding of the meaningful forces at work. Human suffering is indeed part of the calculus, as the section on WWII strategic bombing of Germany shows that, ironically, rather than demoralize the German volk into submission, all evidence points to it having stiffened resistance. Thus indeed what was intended as a strategic campaign in effect became a tactical one.

There is an introductory chapter on Economics explaining the concepts used. Each chapter has clear, useful matrices and charts througout the work summarizing the analysis applied. Readers unaquainted with Economics as a discipline ought not to be intimidated as the book is written for the general reader. And it is an engrossing read if history is an area of interest to you.

Unfortunately, whatever aggressive tendencies seem germane to humankind have had their most effective expression in waging war. It seems to be a lasting condition, however rationalized or just the cause. The analytical tools Messrs. Brauer and van Tuyll advocate increase our understanding of a regrettable but very real and probably permanent aspect of our existence. It may be opportune to also recommend Chris Hedges' "War is a Force That Gives us Meaning."

This book probably will not satisfy readers primarily interested in economic theory, or readers primarily interested in military history. But, if you want to look at military history from a different perspective, or if you are interested in how economic theory could be used to examine and evaluate a complex phenomenon (such as warfare), then this book is very much worth reading. The cross-disciplinary approach taken by the authors is a welcome change of pace, with an analysis that is different from the usual approaches taken in books about economics or books about military history.

The first chapter discusses six economic principles that provide the analytical framework for the seven other chapters in the book: Opportunity Cost; Expected Marginal Costs and Benefits; Substitution; Diminishing Marginal Returns; Asymmetric Information and Hidden Characteristics; and Hidden Actions and Incentive Alignments. Although the authors use the six principles to look at various facets of military history, a reader should consider whether the principles could also be used to provide a different perspective on other subject areas, such as educational institutions, the legal system, and organizational decisions.

Even if a reader is not ultimately persuaded by the thoughtful arguments made in this book, a reader can benefit from reading those arguments and thinking about them. Although I did not find some of the arguments made in the book to be persuasive, I found the book, overall, to be well worth reading.

Out of the six subjects listed in the book, I find allied strategic bombing of Nazi Germany the most interesting. So after receiving my book in the mail, I immediately went to the fifth chapter. After reading only about half of it, I had to put the book away due to extreme disappointment. The author is dead set on demonstrating that this particular subject supports his thesis, and leaves out or "spins" facts that would contradict that.

I am now highly reluctant to read the rest of the book, since the author's credibility is greatly diminished.

Extremely disappointing.

This is a well written economic analysis of various historical developments and events regarding warfare.

My only criticism is that more depth was given to the history than to the economics...if you have already taken several courses of economics, you barely need to glance at the beginning chapter which delineates the basic principles of modern economics. Granted, the author is writing for a general audience, but I still thought that the historical content outweighed the economic analysis.

I had read a favorable review of this book in a publication I trust and ordered this book based upon that review. Military history is one of my spheres of interest and knowledge. I was quite disappointed. The author's theory is stretched to fit the topic.