The Art of War
No one understood the literary dimension of conflict better than Michael Howard.
The death of Michael Howard in November at the age of 97 was widely marked. To describe him as a military historian is true – indeed he was one of the very greatest – but to do so hardly captures the breadth and depth of a man who, before establishing the War Studies Department at King’s College London and the Institute for Strategic Studies, had fought with considerable bravery through Italy in the Second World War; became a fellow of All Souls, the Chichele Professor of the History of War at Oxford and then its Regius Professor; advised Margaret Thatcher, among many others; and did much to forward the case of gay rights at the Ministry of Defence. He was also a considerable aesthete, never quite losing, despite his great age, the bearing of an officer of the Coldstream Guards.
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