The Cognitive Challenge of War: Prussia 1806 Book

"The Cognitive Challenge of War: Prussia 1806" by Peter Paret is an expansion of a lecture given by Paret on how a society responds to a military disaster. The Prussians were decisively defeated by the Napoleon in 1806-7. Their country was dismembered, placed under heavy debt and became a strictly limited dependent of the French.

The book discusses some of the responses by Prussia and elements of it's society to the disaster. There is a short summary of the military campaigns of 1806 and 1807. Then there is a discussion of the response by various sectors including artists, intellectuals, the middle class, as well as the military and the ruling king and nobility.

The book's strength is in how it thinks outside the box. It deals not only with military responses to a military disaster, but in national responses to a national disaster. How a society responds to disaster and the transformation of society from the personal property of a king to a true national society are fascinating issues and issues we are still dealing with today.

The book does have some shortcomings. It's language is somewhat labored. It is also, I believe, too short to cover all the material it attempts to address. Finally, as a military historian, Paret tends to return over and over again to military history. All this gives the book a feeling of disjointedness. That is, a feeling that it tried to cover to much and in the end the author retreated back to what was familiar. Not that I think that any of the topics is problematic, just that expectations were raised far too high.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in Prussian/German history, the Napoleonic wars, military history and sociology. I found Paret's approach fascinating and well worth the read.