Estrategia

Freedman begins his journey at the origins of the strategy by studying the most relevant aspects of the Bible, ancient Greek myths, the book of Sun Tzu and the work of Machiavelli. Next, he makes a masterful review of military strategy, with fine readings of Carl von Clausewitz's texts up to the nuclear texts of the 1950s, the counterinsurgency models and the so-called "revolution" in military affairs. His analysis of political strategy begins with Marx's revolutionary study of politics and ends with Obama's presidential campaigns. He adds to it all a comprehensive historical account of business strategy, encompassing all the ideas of the great theorists on the subject, from Frederick Winslow Taylor to Alfred Sloan and Peter Drucker. This marvelous essay closes with a study of contemporary Social Sciences and an analysis is made of the extent to which this discipline has shaped our idea of ??the concept of "strategy." At the core of strategic thinking is the question: is it possible to manipulate and configure our environment rather than simply being the victims of forces beyond our control? Time and again, Freedman shows that the inherent unpredictability of such an environment -always subject to chance events, the actions of our enemies, or the mistakes of our friends- provides strategy with those particular characteristics of challenge and drama. Armies, companies, and nations rarely evolve from one predictable state to another; Rather, they work their way through a series of previously ignorant stages. The process always requires a reformulation of the original strategy, including the end goal. Thus, the image of strategy presented to us in this book is fluid and flexible, governed by the starting point, not the final destination.