Video review — tap to play
The 33 Strategies of War
Robert Greene adapts principles of military strategy to everyday conflict, organizing thirty-three strategies into groups such as defensive, offensive and unconventional warfare. Each chapter draws on history, from ancient generals to modern politicians and filmmakers.
- Release Date
- 2006
- Publisher
- Viking
We may earn a commission if you buy through these links, at no extra cost to you.
Our Review
About the book
Robert Greene adapts principles of military strategy to everyday conflict, organizing thirty-three strategies into groups such as defensive, offensive and unconventional warfare. Each chapter draws on history, from ancient generals to modern politicians and filmmakers.
Our review
Greene applies the battlefield to boardrooms and family dinners, with dazzling history and some questionable lessons.
As a compendium of military history, this book is a pleasure. Greene ranges from Hannibal and Napoleon to guerrilla campaigns and political rivalries, and he has a gift for explaining why a maneuver worked in terms a nonspecialist can follow. The strategies on keeping your composure, understanding an opponent and choosing your battles carefully are practical, and the sidebars of quotations and counterexamples make it ideal for dipping into rather than reading straight through.
The central conceit, that daily life is warfare, is both the book’s engine and its blind spot. Treating colleagues and partners as enemies to outflank can encourage exactly the paranoia it claims to cure, and the leap from cavalry tactics to office politics is not always convincing. It is also long and repetitive in the familiar Greene manner. Admirers of The 48 Laws will enjoy it; others may prefer the history without the life advice.
What we loved
- Rich, wide-ranging military history
- Clear explanations of classic strategic ideas
- Easy to browse chapter by chapter
Keep in mind
- Frames ordinary relationships as combat
- Long and repetitive, with strained analogies
Read it if you like
Readers of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, Greene’s The 48 Laws of Power, or B. H. Liddell Hart’s Strategy.
The verdict
Entertaining as history and occasionally sharp as advice, but its war-everywhere worldview deserves resistance.
