Proconsuls: Delegated Political-Military Leadership from Rome to America Today - Softcover

Lord, Carnes

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521254698 ISBN 13: 9780521254694

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2012

Synopsis

This book is a study of proconsulship, a form of delegated political-military leadership historically associated with the governance of large empires. Opening with a conceptual and historical analysis of proconsulship as an aspect of imperial or quasi-imperial rule generally, it surveys its origins and development in the late Roman Republic and its manifestations in the British Empire. The main focus is proconsulship in American history. Beginning with the occupation of Cuba and the Philippines after the Spanish-American War, it discusses the role of General Douglas MacArthur in East Asia during and after World War II, the occupation of Germany (focusing on General Lucius Clay), and proconsular leadership during the Vietnam War and the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan at the turn of the twenty-first century. An additional chapter provides an assessment of the evolution of American political-military command and control and decision making after the end of the Cold War.

About this title

Review:

'Lord sensitively and skilfully outlines a detailed blueprint for how such newly organized Defense Department proconsulships might avoid any resemblance to a colonial office or German general staff.' Victor Davis Hanson, Claremont Review of Books

Book Description:

Proconsuls were generals who exercised extraordinary powers of command in the wars that led to Rome's rise as an imperial power. Today, there has been much talk of the increasingly prominent role of proconsular-style officials. This is the first systematic analysis of American proconsular leadership from the Spanish-American War to the present.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0521254698
• ISBN 13: 9780521254694
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 254