Jeremy Black is professor emeritus of history at Exeter University. His recent books include The World at War and War and Its Causes.

• Abbreviations Preface 1 Introduction2 Strategic Contexts3 The Shock of the New? 1792–97 4 To Global Strategies, 1798–1803 5 Central Europe at Stake, 1804–9 6 New Wars, 1810–14 7 War without a Viable French Strategy? 18158 Strategic Assessment 9 Later Strategic Scrutiny 10 Conclusions Selected Further Reading

All in all, with his latest book Black makes a highly significant and welcome contribution to the study of late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century war and of strategy in general. This book is a treat. Only someone with Black’s magisterial grasp of this period, the extraordinary breadth and depth of his knowledge and understanding of war, and his sharp antennae for historical connections could have attempted such a work. It is a book by a very clever fox, and it underlines, if underlining it needs, that history and strategy are best left to foxes.