The Making and Remaking of 'Makers of Modern Strategy': War, Strategy, and History

‘The Making and Remaking of Makers of Modern Strategy: war, strategy, and history'
The three editions of Makers of Modern Strategy(1943, 1986, and 2023) have shaped our understanding of war. In this talk, Dr Michael Finch considers the genesis of the ‘Makers project' and the intellectual biographies of the people who made Makers, reflecting on the conceptualisation of strategy, understandings of history, and the allure of a ‘classic' book.
Dr Michael Finch is Senior Lecturer in the History of War and Strategy at Deakin University Centre for Future Defence and National Security. He was formerly a Senior Lecturer at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University, a Lecturer in the Defence Studies Department at King's College London, and the Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oxford. He is the author of A Progressive Occupation? The Gallieni-Lyautey Method and Colonial Pacification in Tonkin and Madagascar (OUP, 2013) and Making Makers: the Past, the Present, and the Study of War (OUP, 2024).