# The Shield of Achilles

Canonical: https://www.bookquiver.com/philip-bobbitt/the-shield-of-achilles/9780141007557

![The Shield of Achilles](https://quivercdn.com/covers/penguin/philip-bobbitt/the-shield-of-achilles_978-01-4100-755-7.jpg?v=2026-04-23%2007%3A17%3A41)

- Book: [The Shield of Achilles](https://www.bookquiver.com/philip-bobbitt/the-shield-of-achilles) ([The Shield of Achilles.md](https://www.bookquiver.com/philip-bobbitt/the-shield-of-achilles.md))
- Authors: [Philip Bobbitt](https://www.bookquiver.com/philip-bobbitt)
- Publisher: Penguin
- ISBN: 978-01-4100-755-7
- Pages: 960
- Published: 2003-03-27
- Language: en_GB
- Binding: Softcover

## Description

This ambitious book sets out to reinterpret the history of the twentieth century as a long war in which conditions of outright military confrontation or of frantic " cold" competition lasted from the outbreak of the first world war until the collapseof the Soviet Union. He goes on to argue that this long experience of war has brought about a fundamental change in the constitutional basis of sates, and explores this idea through the notion of the " market state". By clarifying the relationship between constitutional settlements and military power, and by drawing on his firsthand experience in the heart of superpower planning, Bobbitt reveals a startling new way of understanding the past - and an awesome glimpse of the future.