Fascist and Liberal Visions of War - Fuller, Liddell Hart, Douhet, and Other Modernists (Hardcover)

In this study, Dr Azar Gat shows how the theories of mechanized war in the air and on land developed throughout the industrial world in the first decades of the 20th century. He examines how the most famous pioneers of these theories were asssociated with proto-fascism and fascism, and goes on to drastically re-evaluate B. Liddell Hart's contribution to military theory, overturning much of the criticism recently levelled against him. Gat shows how, in the wake of the trauma of World War I, and in response to the Axis challenge, Liddell Hart developed the theory of the tactical "cold war", years before nuclear weapons became a military reality. Gat reveals Hart as a pioneer of the modern western liberal way in warfare. This book is intended for scholars and students of 20th-century military history, fascism, and international relations.