The Military Philosophers is the ninth of Anthony Powell's twelve-novel sequence A Dance to the Music of Time.

[4][5] In the background of the narrative he is reading Athenae Oxonienses by Anthony Wood, Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs: from September 1678 to April 1714 by Narcissus Luttrell and Marcel Proust.

Writing in The New York Review, John Gross observed, "The Military Philosophers represents a return to Powell’s most accomplished comic vein.

It is also, on occasion, unexpectedly moving—unexpectedly, because both Powell’s principal literary modes depend to a large degree for their success on a positive withholding of sympathy.

"[7] The Military Philosophers is dedicated to Georgina Ward, the actress who appeared in the theatrical version of Powell's novel, Afternoon Men.