Rating: 
Summary: The Emperor Has No Clothes, Folks
Review: I would have given this text a single star, but for the Herculean effort that went into its writing. As such, I gave it one star for substance and another star for effort.Still, putting in a Herculean effort is not always a good thing: a scholar is also under an obligation to come to the point in a manner which respects the reader's time horizons. Professor Bobbitt, despite his evident intelligence, writes on at length about minutiae, where reams of historical data are presented for every purpose other than to elucidate a general point. Despite the prolixity, there is also an air of shallowness to the text, as if the mountains of verbiage were designed to hide a paucity of actual substance. That said, let me be clear again that Professor Bobbitt is an exceedingly intelligent person - but the text **really** could have used better editing. The book promises to create a new epistemological "paradigm" through which we may better grasp the emerging nature of the "market state", which itself but the latest incarnation of an evolving state structure. That said, "just what particular form the State ultimately emerges.....cannot confidently be predicted." (233) The text's main points are somewhat vague and are stated without positive formulation, with the result being that one is hard pressed to confidently state what the main points actually are. It seems that were the basic points to have simply been summarized in concise bullet form, perhaps in a table, then we might have been able to shave hundreds of pages from the test. In fact, I spent far too much time deciphering items such as this:
"The market-state is, above all, a mechanism for enhancing opportunity, for creating something - possibilities - commensurate with our imaginations." (p. 232) In sum, the prose tends toward rambling; the flow of ideas is not quite coherent; and in the end, the text represents a flat rendition of European history without significant "theoretical yield".
Rating: 
Summary: Cumbersome, often boring, occasionally brilliant...
Review: Is the story of the evolution of the nation-state in Europe really worth 800 pages? Much of this is actually cumbersome, onerous and highly legalistic material which can easily bore the reader. Also, if you are not interested in 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, and early 20th century European history (ie, 95% of the period covered in the book), then this is definitely NOT the book for you. Bobbitt argues that the world has just emerged from the "Long War", by which he means World War I, World War 2, and the Cold War (and associated sub-wars), which lasted from 1914-90. Yet this notion of the short 20th century is hardly original by now, and seems similar to Fukuyama's end of history thesis; namely, that the Long War (or the whole of History, in Fukuyama's view)was all about which system of governance would prevail in Europe (the World for Fukuyama). But why only examine state-formation in Europe? Surely the fascism and communism which has been purged from Europe following the Long War has merely moved to new centres, namely the Middle East (fascism) and China (communism---sort of). Surely only when the whole world embraces parliamentary democracy will the Long War truly be over. Bobbitt does acknowledge the Eurocentricity of the book, but if he wanted a truly comprehensive picture of state evolution, why not also look at the Americas, Africa, and Asia? The section dealing with Bosnia is competent enough, but ignores key geopolitical interests of the USA, European countries, and Russia in the Balkans. Far from ignoring the conflict (which he likens to the murder of Kitty Genovese in New York several decades ago), western nations, through their intelligence agencies, were actively involved on the ground, and all the major powers had interests in the Balkans. Bobbit's handling of this topic largely adheres to conventional wisdom. Definitely the best part of the book is the last 150 or so pages in which Bobbitt offers three scenarios for the future, which he describes as "The Meadow", "The Park", and "The Garden". For each he examines developments in terms of security, economics, and culture, and what sort of worlds we could be facing over the next 40 or so years. I wish he had expanded on some of these and made this the major part of the book. If you want to read something about the world after the cold war or "9/11" then there are other far more concise and to-the-point books than this (e.g., Robert Kaplan's "The Ends of the Earth", Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations", or Michael Klare's "Resource Wars" [regardless of whether you agree with these] and several others of late). The trouble is, so many authors out there want to publish the definitive account of international history and international relations, and the sheer length of Bobbitt's book suggests that he sees his work as a contender. It isn't. But be sure, if you buy it, to read the last 150-200 pages.
Rating: 
Summary: Obscurum per obscurius
Review: It took me not long to find this book's Achilles' heel, so to speak: I don't have a clue what Bobbitt is trying to say, despite numerous attempts at understanding. I feel like a deaf man sailing through dense fog among icebergs. He invokes the Almighty in his dedication and in his last sentence, but what in God's name is the message(s) to take home if you're a policy maker? Does he think Bush, Jiang, Putin or Chirac has the time and patience to wade through 900 pages of theoretical ball-juggling on a tight rope and still leave scratching their heads? It truly takes a fine lawyer to hit Bobbitt's height of verbosity. The contrast with the brilliant crystal clarity of Paul Kennedy's "Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" is like day and night, even though both seem to be writing about the same subjects. This book is the emperor's latest invisible shirt intended to impress graduate poli-sci/IR classes. I advise people to go back to Henry Kissinger's "Diplomacy", Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations", Margaret Thatcher's "Statecraft", and Joseph Nye's latest books. They may or may not be right, and you may or may not agree entirely with them - but at least you are left in no doubt what they mean when you put their books down. For those with a history bent, read Kennedy, Eric Hobsbaum, William H. McNeill and JM Roberts.
Rating:
Summary: Obscurum per obscurius
Review: It took me not long to find this book's Achilles' heel, so to speak: its unintelligibility. Bobbitt's book-learning is first-class, but I don't have a clue what he is trying to say, despite numerous attempts at understanding. I feel like a deaf man sailing through dense fog among icebergs. Here and thereI feel I've hit something substantial, and then it disappears just as suddenly as it came; meanwhile I feel no sense of the direction I'm drifting in, merely a sense of dread. Bobbitt invokes the Almighty in his dedication and in his last sentence, but what in God's name is the message(s) to take home if you're a policy maker? Does he think Bush, Jiang, Putin, Sandy Weill or Crown Prince Abdullah has the time and patience to wade through 900 pages of a guru's theoretical ball-juggling on a tight rope that still leaves them scratching their heads at the end? It truly takes a fine lawyer to hit Bobbitt's height of obscurantism. The contrast with the brilliant crystal clarity of Paul Kennedy's "Rise and Fall" is like day and night, even though both seem to be writing about the same subjects. This tome is the emperor's latest invisible cloak intended to impress gullible graduate poli-sci/IR classes. I advise readers to go back to Kissinger's "Diplomacy", Thatcher's "Statecraft", and Joseph Nye's latest books. They may or may not be right, and you may or may not agree entirely with them - but at least you are left IN NO DOUBT what they mean. For those with a history bent, read Kennedy, Eric Hobsbaum, William H. McNeill and JM Roberts.
Rating:
Summary: Obscurum per obscurius
Review: It took me not long to find this book's Achilles' heel, so to speak: its unintelligibility. I've never said this before about any other book I've reviewed so far, but I must be frank here: I don't have a clue what this pundit is trying to say, despite numerous attempts at understanding. I feel like a deaf man sailing in dense fog through icebergs. Here and there I feel I've hit something substantial, and then it disappears just as suddenly as it came; meanwhile I feel no sense of the direction I'm being led in, merely a sense of dread. Bobbitt invokes the Almighty in his dedication and again in his very last sentence, but what in God's name are the key messages to take home if you're a policy maker? Does he think Bush, Jiang, Putin, Sandy Weill, or Prince Sultan ibn Sa'ud has the time and patience to wade through 900 pages of a guru's theoretical ball-juggling on a tightrope that still leaves them scratching their heads at the end? It truly takes a fine lawyer overstuffed with first-class book-learning to reach this height of obscurantism: verbose, pretentious, impressionist, ivory-tower. The contrast with the brilliant, cystal-clear prose of Paul Kennedy's "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" is like night and day, even though both Bobbitt and Kennedy seem to be writing about the same subjects. This tome is the emperor's latest invisible cloak intended to impress gullible poli-sci/IR students. I advise people to go back to Henry Kissinger's "Diplomacy", Samuel Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations", Margaret Thatcher's "Statecraft", and Joseph Nye's new books. These authors (from both sides of the ideological spectrum) may or may not be right, and you may or may not agree entirely with their views - but at least you are left IN NO DOUBT as to what they mean when you put these books down. For those with a history bent, read Kennedy, Eric Hobsbawm, William H. McNeill (especially his fantastic "The Rise of the West"), and J.M. Roberts's "History of the World". And, please, forget about books on international law.
Rating: 
Summary: Essential reading. A modern classic.
Review: No book has influenced my thinking about world affairs more than this one. Whether it is an eight page dedication to Carl Schmitt or an event-become-allegory like the Kitty Genovese case, all of the important nuggets for understanding the current state of affairs are in this book.
For those frustrated by its lack of clarity: this is a book that I take is meant more for steering than firm conclusions. If you are looking for those, head for a subject where elements can be isolated, like mathematics or logic. In real life, the best and most accurate conclusions are often open-ended. Indeterminacy is not tantamount to obfuscation, however. Those who have disparaged this book below might try reading it again with this point in mind.
At any rate, this is a first-class book. Only a few truly great books will come along in our lifetimes and this is one of them. Getting the notion of the market-state is alone worth the read. My one warning though is this: prepare to work hard if you want to completely understand this book. Although it provides background summaries of key historical and intellectual events, it requires a certain level of sophistication and/or persistence from its reader.
Rating: 
Summary: Thoughtful but not for leisure reading
Review: Several of the other reviewers have indicated the pluses and minuses of the work. Suffice it to say that it does provide a detailed overview of diplomatic and macro-military changes over five centuries and adds another intellecutal option for consideration in the post-"End of History" debate. If this is your area of interest, then the book is well worth the read. If not, there are other, shorter books that will do just fine (many of whom exist in Bobbitt's bibli).
Rating:
Summary: big ideas in a large frame
Review: Some of the reviewers complain about the size of the book, and it is big. But Bobbitt does an admirable job of stating his thesis, that differing constitutional regimes create epochs of differing state organization, and that the conflicts between these constitutional ideas and their representative states is one of the major causes of power conflict, dating back to Westphalia (1688) and even before that, to the time of the development of the city-state in renaissance florence/venice/milan etc.
Bobbitt runs through the historical development of all the subsequent european organizations of the state, up to the 20th century industrial nation state, and what he calls, implicitly paraphrasing Arrighi and Hobsbawm's "long centuries," the "long war" that was to decide which constitutional regime would survive: that of democratic federalism, communist federalism, or fascist federalism.
Now that that war is over, Bobbitt posits that the nation state is weakening and that the market state will enter the world stage. According to bobbitt, contrary to some current theorizing, the state is not "dying;" it is changing-- to the market state. The last part of the book is spent trying to imagine how this might play out over the next century. This is probably the weakest part of the book, but Bobbitt acknowledges that he is embarking on conjectures which obviously are nothing more than that. But since his book was written BEFORE 9/11, some of what he has written does sounds prescient; other parts read almost naive in light of the "war on terror" and bush unilateralism, the weakened dollar, the potential within a rising EU, etc.
THis is a big book, 822 pages of actual text, with a lot of notes and a complete bibliography. If you want to read something about the creation of the state over the past 500 years or so, how it developed, and where it might go from here, this is definitely the work to turn to. SOme of his theorizing regarding the "market state" smacks of basic libertarianism, and reminds me of a rather poorly argued book called "the sovreign individual" by micklethwait and another whose name escapes me at the moment, but in any case, this book is much more scholarly, but by no means inaccessible to any educated person with a little time on their hands to read 822 pages about international law, war and state formation. It is a big picture book that will help you to schematize the current world and the international effects of actions that are taking place at this time. One minor drawback- not much on third world development issues, or why state formation has been different or inconsistent on these economies. But a writer cannot cover everything...
Rating:
Summary: Trial by ordeal
Review: There are some truly excellent ideas in this book...in the end it is worth the effort. Still, Professor Bobbit's lack of self discipline in writing this behemoth did make me knock a star off the rating. He does construct a solid and original model for viewing the history of the state, and I feel profitably applies it to the current turmoil of the day. The book gets more speculative at the end, but the author is the first to say when he is launching into conjecture. Reading these parts is not without value, but given the sheer size of this volume they should have been cut as an act of mercy. In spite of this, the historical content is well researched and the ideas here are exciting. Bobbit soberly and insightfully shows us how the state has evolved, and sheds light on how it is changing today.
Since the extravagant length of the book seems to be turning people away from a piece that should be read, however, let me say two things. First, The Shield of Achilles is broken down into two major sections. I read one, put it down for a few months, and came back. That way I was not at any point overwhelmed. Book I stands on its own without a problem, book II less so. Two, with such an extended indoctrination into Professor Bobbit's way of thinking, you do walk away having a real handle on his ideas. It is a bit like swallowing the idea whole, or perhaps vice versa. Gird your whatever, develop a plan of attack, and read the book. There's real gold in there, you just have to dig.
Rating:
Summary: 7 Habits of Highly Effective Nations
Review: This book blends all of the tediousness of a middle-management PowerPoint presentation with the slipshod history of Oswald Spengler. Too long. No synthesis. And chock-a-block with sexy corporate jargon.
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