On the Psychology of Military Incompetence

Dixon surveys British military disasters from the Crimea and the Boer War through the Somme, Kut, Singapore, and Arnhem, then asks why armed services repeatedly promote commanders who ignore unwelcome facts, cling to frontal assault, and fear innovation. His answer lies in the authoritarian personality fostered by officer selection, public-school training, and military bull: rigidity, anti-intellectualism, and a need for approval from above. Competent exceptions put the task before self-image. Case chapters supply the examples; later parts apply social and clinical psychology. The book is a psychological argument about command failure, not a complete operational history of those campaigns.

Three-quarter-bound in grey cloth with cream Modigliani paper front board printed with a colour picture.