Napoleon's Glance

William Duggan
March 2003     ISBN: 1560254572

In 1810 Napoleon was the most successful general in history. That same year Carl von Clausewitz joined the new Prussian War College in Berlin. He spent the next twenty years struggling to define the genius of Napoleon. In Chapter Six of his great work, On War, Clausewitz reveals the secret: Napoleon's glance. He calls it coup d'oeil, meaning literally a stroke of the eye, or glance--a sudden insight that shows you what course of action to take. It comes from knowledge of the past: You draw in what worked in other situations, in a new combination that fits the problem at hand.

Napoleon's Glance shows, in a striking series of historical vignettes, how ten great strategists owed their success to coup d'oeil: How General Patton became the most successful Allied general on the Western Front of World War II. How Joan of Arc saved France. How Picasso became the leading artist of the twentieth century. And so on through the centuries, across continents, in every field of human endeavor.

"Pop business meets military and intellectual history in this intriguing study of strategizing as a habit of being."

--Kirkus Review

William Duggan is the author of The Great Thirst and Lovers of the African Night. He has a PhD from Columbia University and teaches strategy there. He is the co-founder of the Creative Strategy Group, which helps organizations and individuals apply Napoleon's glance to whatever they do.