Book
Mavericks
First published 2008
Robert Harvey presents twelve commanders whose battlefield success depended on personal authority, unconventional judgement and a willingness to disregard accepted methods. The portraits pair each figure with a defining campaign: Robert Clive at Plassey, James Wolfe at Quebec, George Washington at Yorktown, Horatio Nelson at Trafalgar, Thomas Cochrane at the Basque Roads, Arthur Wellesley at Salamanca, Giuseppe Garibaldi in Sicily, Ulysses S. Grant at Vicksburg, Erwin Rommel in North Africa, George Patton in the Ardennes, Bernard Montgomery at El Alamein and Douglas MacArthur at Inchon.
Rather than offering a single formula for command, Harvey compares patience, aggression, improvisation, logistical control, communication and the ability to sustain soldiers’ confidence under pressure. The chapters also show how reputations were shaped after the event: dramatic victories could conceal political miscalculation, heavy casualties or dependence on subordinates and material superiority. Mavericks is therefore both a sequence of battle narratives and an argument about the volatile relationship between individual personality and institutional warfare.
Historical Periods
Battle of Salamanca1812-07-22 Seven Years’ War1756–1763 CE American Revolutionary War1775–1783 CE East India Company Ascendancy1757–1833 CE Battle of Trafalgar1805-10-21 North African Campaign1940–1943 CE Korean War1950–1953 CE Siege of Vicksburg1863 CE Battle of the Basque Roads1809 CE Italian Unification1815–1871 CE Battle of the Bulge16 December 1944–25 January 1945
Genres
Historical people
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington1769–1852 Horatio Nelson1758–1805 Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald1775–1860 George Washington1732–1799 Erwin Rommel1891–1944 Giuseppe Garibaldi1807–1882 Bernard Montgomery1887–1976 Douglas MacArthur Ulysses S. Grant1822–1885 Robert Clive1725–1774 George S. Patton
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