Napoleon's Glance: The Secret of Strategy

When Napoleon's Glance was first published last spring, former NATO secretary general and now putative presidential candidate Wesley Clark declared, "This is a very important book." In Napoleon's Glance strategist William Duggan shows how Clark, along with ten other important figures in the fields of politics, war and culture, owed their success to coup d'oeil. But what is coup d'oeil? Carl von Clausewitz spent twenty years struggling to pin down the genius of Napoleon. In chapter six of what would become "On War" he discovered the secret of Napoleon's strategy: Napoleon's glance. Clausewitz calls it "coup d'oeil" meaning 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, drawing on what worked in other situations in a new combination that fits the problem at hand. In Napoleon's Glance, Duggan expertly weaves intellectual history and biography in showing how important and decisive coup d'oeil is in determining victory in war, art, the civil rights movement, third world development, and the battle for women's suffrage in America.

In Napoleons Glance William Duggan discovers the secret of Napoleons successcoup doeil (pronounced koo-DOY) meaning 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 on what worked in other situations, in a new combination that fits the problem at hand. Napoleons Glanceprobably the first book to link Napoleons victories to Picassos development as an artist!tells how 10 great strategists owed their success to coup doeil. All 10 applied it with great effort and risk and no guarantee it would work. But in case after case, we find the same story: How American women won the vote. How General Patton became the most successful Allied general on the Western Front of World War II. How Joan of Arc saved France from certain conquest by England. How in one generation Japan went from a peasant backwater to an industrial giant. How Picasso became the leading artist of the twentieth century. Though there have been scores of books written about Napoleon, this is the first popular book written for the general reader about his military strategy.

The first popular book on military strategy for the general reader, "Napoleon's Glance" shows how Napoleon's battlefield secret has also been used by distinguished figures from the worlds of politics, war, and culture.