AUGUSTA STATE UNIVERSITY Castles, Battles, & Bombs: How Economics Explains Military History By Jurgen Brauer and Hubert van Tuyll From the walls of Troy to the sands of Iraq, humans have devoted staggering resources to the art and science of war. Yet while military history has long studied the economics of conflict, until now there have been few attempts to apply the principles of economics to military history. In Castles, Battles, & Bombs, Jurgen Brauer and Hubert van Tuyll reconsider key episodes of military history from the point of view of economics—with dramatically insightful results. For example, when looked at as a question of sheer cost, the building of castles in the Middle Ages seems almost inevitable: though stunningly expensive, a strong castle was far cheaper to maintain than a standing army. Similarly, great commanders of the Age of Battle such as Napoleon, Marlborough, and Frederick the Great are shown to have engaged in cost/benefit calculations: because the risk of losing an entire army usually far outweighed the potential spoils of victory, they actually chose to fight relatively few large engagements. The authors also reexamine the strategic bombing of Germany in World War II and provide new insights into France’s decision to develop nuclear weapons. Drawing on these examples and more, Brauer and van Tuyll suggest lessons for today’s military, from counterterrorist strategy and military manpower planning to the use of private military companies in Afghanistan and Iraq. My skepticism was relieved by the preface, my expectations enhanced by the first chapter, my confidence assured by the second. This study is serious, creative, important. As an economist I am happy to see economics so professionally applied to illuminate major decisions in the history of warfare. –Thomas C. Schelling, University of Maryland, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics Jurgen Brauer is professor of economics in the James M. Hull College of Business at Augusta State University and the author of Arms Trade and Economic Development: Theory, Policy, and Cases in Arms Trade Offsets and Arming the South: The Economics of Military Expenditure, Arms Production, and Arms Trade in Developing Countries. Hubert P. van Tuyll is professor of history and chair of the Department of History, Anthropology, and Philosophy at Augusta State University. He is the author of The Netherlands and World War I: Espionage, Diplomacy, and Survival; America’s Strategic Future; and Feeding the Bear: American Aid to the Soviet Union, 1941–1945. Available at local bookstores, Amazon.com, and the ASU Bookstore. The University of Chicago Press, www.press.uchicago.edu; ISBN-10: 0-226-7163-4; ISBN-13: 978-0-226-7163-3.
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