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Studying the Art of War: Military Books Known to American Officers and Their French Counterparts During the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century
- The Journal of Military History
- Society for Military History
- Volume 70, Number 3, July 2006
- pp. 781-814
- 10.1353/jmh.2006.0187
- Article
- Additional Information
This essay seeks first to identify published military books available to eighteenth-century American officers and their French counterparts. Second, it examines which among those titles were actually known to or owned by a number of said officers. Not surprisingly, the titles included classical military histories as well as contemporary histories and biographies. In addition, practical treatises such as drill manuals and mathematical treatises on artillery, fortification, and strategy were popular. The study includes an annotated list of those books and identifies which among them can be found at the library of the Society of the Cincinnati.