The Grand Design
Strategy and the U.S. Civil War
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Narrated by:
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Thomas Dunn
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By:
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Donald Stoker
About this listen
Despite the abundance of books on the Civil War, not one has focused exclusively on what was in fact the determining factor in the outcome of the conflict: differences in union and southern strategy. In The Grand Design, Donald Stoker provides for the first time a comprehensive and often surprising account of strategy as it evolved between Fort Sumter and Appomattox. Reminding us that strategy is different from tactics (battlefield deployments) and operations (campaigns conducted in pursuit of a strategy), Stoker examines how Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis identified their political goals and worked with their generals to craft the military means to achieve them - or how they often failed to do so. Stoker shows that Davis, despite a West Point education and experience as Secretary of War, ultimately failed as a strategist by losing control of the political side of the war. Lincoln, in contrast, evolved a clear strategic vision, but he failed for years to make his generals implement it. And while Robert E. Lee was unerring in his ability to determine the Union's strategic heart - its center of gravity - he proved mistaken in his assessment of how to destroy it.
Historians have often argued that the North's advantages in population and industry ensured certain victory. In The Grand Design, Stoker reasserts the centrality of the overarching plan on each side, arguing convincingly that it was strategy that determined the result of America's great national conflict.
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A General Who Will Fight is a detailed study of leadership that explores Grant's rise from undisciplined cadet to commanding general of the United States Army. Some experts have attributed Grant's success to superior manpower and technology, to the help he received from other Union armies, or even to a ruthless willingness to sacrifice his own men. Harry S. Laver, however, refutes these arguments and reveals that the only viable explanation for Grant's success lies in his leadership skill, professional competence, and unshakable resolve.
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A quick focus on a interesting man
- By cosmitron on 07-11-18
By: Harry S. Laver
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1777
- The Year of the Hangman
- By: John S. Pancake
- Narrated by: Robert Thaler
- Length: 13 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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A revisionist view of the Revolution's most crucial year...it explodes many of the myths surrounding Burgoyne's Canadian expedition and Howe's Pennsylvania campaign. There is a wealth of fascinating detail in this book, including information on arms and supplies, rations for women camp followers, and even the numbers of carts (30-odd) carrying Burgoyne's luggage.
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Very Good
- By William on 08-22-16
By: John S. Pancake
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Sun Tzu at Gettysburg
- Ancient Military Wisdom in the Modern World
- By: Bevin Alexander
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Imagine the impact on world history if Robert E. Lee had listened to General Longstreet at Gettysburg and withdrawn to higher ground instead of sending Pickett uphill against the entrenched Union line. Or if Napolon, at Waterloo, had avoided mistakes he'd never made before. The advice that would have changed the outcome of these crucial battles is found in a book on strategy written centuries before Christ was born.
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How Different History Could Be
- By Lifeisshort on 09-13-14
By: Bevin Alexander
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Eisenhower's Armies
- By: Niall Barr
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 20 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Eisenhower's Armies is the story of two very different armies learning to live, work, and fight together even in the face of serious strategic disagreements. The Anglo-American relationship from 1941-1945 proved to be the most effective military alliance in history. Yet there were also constant tensions and disagreements that threatened to pull the alliance apart.
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One of the unsung efforts during World War II
- By Mike From Mesa on 07-31-16
By: Niall Barr
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The American Civil War
- A Military History
- By: John Keegan
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 16 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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For the past half century, John Keegan, the greatest military historian of our time, has been returning to the scenes of America’s most bloody and wrenching war to ponder its lingering conundrums: the continuation of fighting for four years between such vastly mismatched sides; the dogged persistence of ill-trained, ill-equipped, and often malnourished combatants; the effective absence of decisive battles among some two to three hundred known to us by name.
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A Novel Approach (As Opposed to Novelistic)
- By margot on 11-18-12
By: John Keegan
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The Coming Fury
- The Centennial History of the Civil War, Volume 1
- By: Bruce Catton
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 20 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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> The New York Times hailed this trilogy as “one of the greatest historical accomplishments of our time”. With stunning detail and insights, America’s foremost Civil War historian recreates the war from its opening months to its final, bloody end. Each volume delivers a complete listening experience. The Coming Fury (Volume 1) covers the split Democratic Convention in the spring of 1860 to the first battle of Bull Run.
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History As It Should Be
- By Bryan on 07-19-11
By: Bruce Catton
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Collision of Empires
- The War on the Eastern Front in 1914
- By: Prit Buttar
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 21 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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The fighting that raged in the East during the First World War was every bit as fierce as that on the Western Front, but the titanic clashes between three towering empires - Russia, Austro-Hungary, and Germany - remains a comparatively unknown facet of the Great War. With the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the war in 2014, Collision of Empires is a timely expose of the bitter fighting on this forgotten front - a clash that would ultimately change the face of Europe forever.
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Best book non-fiction book ever on the Eastern Front in 1914
- By HistoricalReader on 01-31-18
By: Prit Buttar
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American General
- The Life and Times of William Tecumseh Sherman
- By: John S.D. Eisenhower
- Narrated by: Jack Garrett
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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From respected historian John S. D. Eisenhower comes a surprising portrait of William Tecumseh Sherman, the Civil War general whose path of destruction cut the Confederacy in two, broke the will of the Southern population, and earned him a place in history as "the first modern general". Yet behind his reputation as a fierce warrior was a sympathetic man of complex character. A century and a half after the Civil War, Sherman remains one of its most controversial figures...
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War is Hell?
- By Sandra on 03-27-15
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Crucible of War
- The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766
- By: Fred Anderson
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 29 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In this vivid and compelling narrative, the Seven Years' War - long seen as a mere backdrop to the American Revolution - takes on a whole new significance. Relating the history of the war as it developed, Anderson shows how the complex array of forces brought into conflict helped both to create Britain's empire and to sow the seeds of its eventual dissolution. Beginning with a skirmish in the Pennsylvania backcountry involving an inexperienced George Washington, the Iroquois chief Tanaghrisson, and the ill-fated French emissary Jumonville, Anderson reveals a chain of events that would lead to world conflagration.
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A Detailed History
- By Daniel on 07-15-18
By: Fred Anderson
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A Warrior Dynasty
- The Rise and Fall of Sweden as a Military Superpower 1611-1721
- By: Henrik O. Lunde
- Narrated by: Mark Ashby
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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This audiobook examines the meteoric rise of Sweden as the pre-eminent military power in Europe during the Thirty Years War during the 1600s, and then follows its line of warrior kings into the next century until the Swedes finally meet their demise, in an overreach into the vastness of Russia. A small Scandinavian nation, with at most one and a half million people and scant internal resources of its own, there was small logic to how Sweden could become the dominant power on the Continent.
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An author with an idea but not the skills
- By chris loomis on 08-07-15
By: Henrik O. Lunde
What listeners say about The Grand Design
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Joel Langenfeld
- 03-17-18
Clausewitzian commentary on the Civil War
The author is firmly in the Clausewitz camp, whose influence ebbs and flows over the decades. He does do a very nice job of evaluating the actions and correspondences of most of the major commanders and their government from that framework. My guess is that this would be an easier listen if you already familiar with many of the campaigns and personalities - maybe having read some Foote, Sears, Catton, etc.
The narrator has a few odd pronunciations, but overall is easy to listen to. Unfortunately, the editing was a little sloppy, leaving in retakes in a few places and at least one instance of a short excerpt apparently missing.
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1 person found this helpful
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- All-access Customer
- 10-03-18
top military lessons for sure
loved it! would recommend to any military person to learn more about strategy and planning.
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- James E. Carr
- 08-18-13
The Professor Holds Forth
Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?
Only if he or she really wants to get into thinking about grand strategy in the civil war
Have you listened to any of Thomas Dunn’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
No
Could you see The Grand Design being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?
No
Any additional comments?
This book is what you would reasonably expect to come from a professorial academic who has some very firm ideas on how the Civil War was won (and lost). Basically, it appears that the South was doomed to failure by its political hubris and stupidity from the git go, a pattern of behavior epitomized by the titular head of the new nation with no practical view of the big picture - Jefferson Davis. Meanwhile, Abraham Lincoln was having some minor fumbling and bumbling at the beginning, but he was a naturally wise and intuitive guy who knew there needed to be a grand design for winning the war, and was simply delayed a few years while he found the right players to implement his vision. Well read and entertaining enough for those already well immersed in minutiae on the War, it is still ultimately a lengthy academic lecture which espouses one man's opinion, but really breaks no new ground. The particular value of this work is one of stimulating alternative opinions on the truly grand "strategic" aspects of the War. In truth, Mr. Stoker's working premise that the North developed a meaningful strategic plan to achieve victory and the South never did may not only be the obvious first answer, but the last as well.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Glenn
- 12-26-13
Shoddy
What disappointed you about The Grand Design?
Narration is filled with mispronunciations
What was most disappointing about Donald Stoker’s story?
Nothing new here, dry material and dull
How could the performance have been better?
One chapter has a repeated paragraph and an omission
What character would you cut from The Grand Design?
Narrator
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2 people found this helpful