Focusing on military strategy and technology, and international law and politics, considered by Bobbitt as "the makers of history", he reviews the major European wars from 1494 to 1990 and the major peace agreements that ended them. He also devotes a chapter to the recent war in Bosnia.
His insight into the methods, motivations, skillfulness, and ineptitude of the major players gives us new perceptions on the use of geopolitical power. He uses all this background to consider our current and probable world problems and then, using methods pioneered by Royal Dutch/Shell Group Planning, relates them to three alternative scenarios of how these new market-states may evolve and deal with these issues.
At 827 pages plus notes it is not short, nor is it light reading, but it's lessons are imperative for people involved in government, the military, foreign relations, and global strategic thinking. I also highly recommended it for anyone who desires a thoughtful analysis of what is likely to be in store for our civilization in the days ahead.
The Shield of Achilles is a very worthwhile read, but not because its conclusions wash. Reading a book like this, which, sarcasm aside, is a very intelligent production, is valuable more as an occasion for thought than as a historical TOE. What's vividly missing from the book is finally more important than what is in it. Bobbitt managed to write a 900-page book about the state, warfare, and politics without saying anything about who benefits and who loses. He is often very good about the what and the how of history but the question of who is absent without leave. Thus he manages to write about the contemporary situation at great length without noting that in America, at least, the disparity of wealth between the rich and poor is increasing markedly so that a regime supposedly dedicated to increasing opportunity is actually reducing opportunity for most people. He claims that the media are becoming more democratic when, in fact, five corporations control something like 80% of airtime. There is also no mention of the enormous growth of prisons in the U.S., a social fact that must have some relation to the author's thesis. More generally, Bobbitt writes about tendencies like deregulation or privatization as if the intentions of their promoters were irrelevant. It is also puzzling that Bobbitt seems to think that the transition from what he calls the nation state to the market state continues the Cold War triumph of democratic institutions when political participation rates and even the 2000 American election suggest that democracy is in general retreat.
