This bibliography lists works, from the end of the eighteenth century to the present, documenting the literature on the art of war in the eighteenth century, its role in military education, and its practical influence on soldiers from the Prussian officers of Frederick the Great to the Continental Army officers who served under George Washington.
The military became a profession in the eighteenth century. Military service had been both a way of life and a livelihood since antiquity, but in Western societies from the Middle Ages through the Renaissance, military officers were drawn mainly from the ranks of the aristocracy and the gentry, and military advancement was more often based on social standing than specialized training or practical experience, two of the characteristics of modern professions.
The professionalization of the military paralleled the rise of printing and print culture. It can be discerned in the sixteenth century and was clearly at work in the seventeenth, although social status remained the primary source of preferment and technical knowledge was not yet a prerequisite to success in the field.
Change accelerated in the eighteenth century. As warfare became more technologically sophisticated and expensive, European monarchies needed officers with sophisticated knowledge in military engineering, including the design and construction of fixed fortifications, the management of artillery, cartography, and the effective management of large armies in the field. European navies required increasingly technical knowledge of naval architecture, navigation, and the handling of ever more powerful naval artillery.
Formal military education emerged during the eighteenth century, beginning with the most technically demanding fields like the design and construction of fortifications and the handling of artillery, and gradually extending to other areas. The literature of the art of war, including engineering manuals, technical treatises, and guides to effective drill and the handling of armies on the march, in camp, and in battle, grew in volume and richness during the eighteenth century.
By the time of the American Revolution, European armies were led by an increasing number of officers who learned the art of war by reading and practical application of the prescriptions found in books. Military preferment was still based on social standing at the end of the century, but aristocratic officers who mastered technical aspects of their profession were far more likely to advance in rank and responsibility if they were well versed in literature on the art of war. Among the officers of Washington’s army, soldier like Henry Knox and Nathanael Greene who devoted time to mastering technical literature rose in rank, responsibility, and the esteem of their commander.
This flowering of the literature on the art of war in the eighteenth century is amply reflected in the Robert Charles Lawrence Fergusson Collection, the largest and most important of the rare holding of the American Revolution Institute library.
Alston, Robin Carfrae. Military & Naval Arts & Sciences. 2 vols. [Vol. 18, part 3 of A Bibliography of the English Language from the Invention of Printing to the Year 1800.] Great Britain: Printed for the author by Smith Settle Otley, 2005.
Boston Athenaeum. A Catalogue of the Washington Collection in the Boston Athenæum. Cambridge: University Press, John Wilson and Son, 1897.
Danley, Mark H. “Military Writings and the Theory and Practice of Strategy in the Eighteenth-century British Army.” Ph.D. dissertation, Kansas State University, 2001.
Duffy, Christopher. The Military Experience in the Age of Reason. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987.
Gat, Azar. The Origins of Military Thought: From the Enlightenment to Clausewitz. Oxford: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press, 1989.
Gruber, Ira D. Books and the British Army in the Age of the American Revolution. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press; co-published with the Society of the Cincinnati, 2010.
Gruber, Ira D. “British Strategy: The Theory and Practice of Eighteenth-Century Warfare.” In Reconsiderations on the Revolutionary War, edited by Don Higginbotham, 14-31, 166-70. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1978.
Gruber, Ira D. “Classical Influences on British Strategy in the War for American Independence.” In Classical Traditions in Early America, edited by John W. Eadie, 175-190. Ann Arbor: Center for Coordination of Ancient and Modern Studies, University of Michigan, 1976.
Gruber, Ira D. “The Education of Sir Henry Clinton.” Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 72, no. 1 (Spring 1990): 133-153.
Higginbotham, Don. “Military Education before West Point.” In Thomas Jefferson’s Military Academy: Founding West Point, edited by Robert M. S. McDonald, 23-53. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2004.
Houlding, J. A. Fit for Service: The Training of the British Army, 1715-1795. Oxford: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press, 2000.
Jähns, Max. Geschichte der Kriegswissenschaften Vornehmlich in Deutschland. New York: Johnson Reprint Corp., 1966.
Kehoe, Vincent J.-R. “The Works of Captain Thomas Simes.” Journal of the Society of Army Historical Research 78, no. 315 (2000): 214-217.
Langins, Janis. Conserving the Enlightenment: French Military Engineering from Vauban to the Revolution. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2004.
Lawrence, David R. The Complete Soldier: Military Books and Military Culture in Early Stuart England, 1603-1645. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2009.
Lynn, John A. “Historiographical Essay: The Treatment of Military Subjects in Diderot’s Encyclopédie.” Journal of Military History 65, no. 1 (January 2001): 131-165.
McCormack, Matthew. “Liberty and Discipline: Militia Training Literature in Mid-Georgian England.” In Soldiering in Britain and Ireland, 1750-1850, edited by Catriona Kennedy and Matthew McCormack, 159-177. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
Powers, Sandra L. “Studying the Art of War: Military Books Known to American Officers and Their French Counterparts during the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century.” Journal of Military History 70, no. 3 (July 2006): 781-814.
Quimby, Robert S. The Background of Napoleonic Warfare: The Theory of Military Tactics in Eighteenth-Century France. New York: Columbia University Press, 1957.
Riling, Joseph R. The Art and Science of War in America: A Bibliography of American Imprints, 1690-1800. Bloomfield, Ontario: Museum Restoration Service, 1990.
Riling, Joseph R. Baron von Steuben and His Regulations. Philadelphia: Ray Riling Arms Books, 1966.
Shaw, Ralph R. Engineering Books Available in America prior to 1830. New York: New York Public Library, 1933.
Sloos, Louis Ph. Warfare and the Age of Printing: Catalogue of Early Printed Books from before 1801 in Dutch Military Collections with Analytical Bibliographic Descriptions of 10,000 Works. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008.
Spaulding, Oliver Lyman. “The Military Studies of George Washington.” American Historical Review 29, no. 4 (July 1924): 675-680.
Spaulding, Oliver Lyman, Hoffman Nickerson, and John Womack Wright. Warfare: A Study of Military Methods from the Earliest Times. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1925.
Spaulding, Thomas M., and Louis Charles Karpinski. Early Military Books in the University of Michigan Libraries. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1941.
Starkey, Armstrong. War in the Age of the Enlightenment, 1700-1789. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2003.