Army Reading List - U.S. Army Professional Reading List
Title: Westmoreland’s War: Reassessing American Strategy in Vietnam
Author: Gregory Daddis
Book Description:
General William C. Westmoreland has long been derided for his failed strategy of “attrition” in the Vietnam War. Historians have argued that Westmoreland’s strategy placed a premium on high “body counts” through a “big unit war” that relied almost solely on search and destroy missions. Many believe the U.S. Army failed in Vietnam because of […]
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Title: Washington’s Crossing
Author: David Hackett Fischer
Book Description:
Six months after the Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution was all but lost. A powerful British force had routed the Americans at New York, occupied three colonies, and advanced within sight of Philadelphia. Yet, as David Hackett Fischer recounts in this riveting history, George Washington–and many other Americans–refused to let the Revolution die. On […]
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Title: The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier’s Education
Author: Craig M. Mullaney
Book Description:
U.S. Army Capt. Craig Mullaney recounts the hard lessons that only war can teach while fighting al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. This is a portrait of a junior officer grappling with the weight of war and coming to terms with what it means to lead others in combat.
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Title: SUPPLYING WAR: LOGISTICS FROM WALLENSTEIN TO PATTON
Author: Martin van Creveld
Book Description:
Drawing on a very wide range of unpublished and previously unexploited sources, Martin van Creveld examines the “nuts and bolts” of war. He considers the formidable problems of movement and supply, transportation and administration, often mentioned (but rarely explored) by the vast majority of books on military history. By concentrating on logistics rather than on […]
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Title: Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45
Author: Max Hastings
Book Description:
By the summer of 1944 it was clear that Japan’s defeat was inevitable, but how the drive to victory would be achieved remained unclear. The ensuing drama—that ended in Japan’s utter devastation—was acted out across the vast theater of Asia in massive clashes between army, air, and naval forces. In recounting these extraordinary events, Max […]
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Title: Refighting the Last War: Command and Crisis in Korea 1950-53
Author: Anne Sharp Wells, D. Clayton James
Book Description:
This book examines the Korean War, the paradigm of America’s conflicts with communism. He argues that, like so many wars, the Korean War was fought broadly along the lines of the war before, World War II. It shows, however, that the consequences of this error were limited by the State Department. The book examines the […]
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Title: Personal Memoirs: Ulysses S. Grant
Author: Ulysses S. Grant
Book Description:
Among the autobiographies of great military figures, Ulysses S. Grant’s is certainly one of the finest, and it is arguably the most notable literary achievement of any American president: a lucid, compelling, and brutally honest chronicle of triumph and failure. From his frontier boyhood to his heroics in battle to the grinding poverty from which […]
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Title: Pacific Blitzkrieg: World War II in the Central Pacific
Author: Sharon Tosi Lacey
Book Description:
Lacey closely examines the planning, preparation, and execution of ground operations at the corps and division level for five major invasions in the Central Pacific: Guadalcanal, Tarawa, the Marshall Islands, Saipan, and Okinawa. The commanders had to integrate the U.S. Army and Marine Corps into a single operational force, something that would have been difficult […]
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Title: Grunts Inside the American Infantry Combat Experience, World War II Through Iraq
Author: John C. McManus
Book Description:
John C. McManus covers six decades of warfare in which the courage of American troops proved the crucial difference between victory and defeat. Based on years of archival research and personal interviews with veterans, Grunts demonstrates the vital, and too often forgotten, importance of the human element in protecting the American nation, and advances a […]
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Title: The Endgame: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Iraq, from George W. Bush to Barack Obama
Author: Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor
Book Description:
A peerless work of investigative journalism and historical recreation ranging from 2003 to 2012, it gives us the first comprehensive, inside account of arguably the most widely reported yet least understood war in American history—from the occupation of Iraq to the withdrawal of American troops. Prodigiously researched, The Endgame is not only based on an abundance […]
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Title: The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme
Author: John Keegan
Book Description:
The Face of Battle is military history from the battlefield: a look at the direct experience of individuals at the “point of maximum danger.” Without the myth-making elements of rhetoric and xenophobia, and breaking away from the stylized format of battle descriptions, John Keegan has written what is probably the definitive model for military historians. […]
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Title: Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766
Author: Fred Anderson
Book Description:
In this vivid and compelling narrative, the Seven Years’ War–long seen as a mere backdrop to the American Revolution–takes on a whole new significance. Relating the history of the war as it developed, Anderson shows how the complex array of forces brought into conflict helped both to create Britain’s empire and to sow the seeds […]
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Title: Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of War
Author: Douglas Porch
Book Description:
Counterinsurgency has staked its claim in the new century as the new American way of war. Yet, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have revived a historical debate about the costs – monetary, political and moral – of operations designed to eliminate insurgents and build nations. Today’s counterinsurgency proponents point to ‘small wars’ past to […]
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Title: The Cambridge Illustrated History of Warfare: The Triumph of the West
Author: Geoffrey Parker
Book Description:
The Cambridge Illustrated History of Warfare provides a unique account of Western warfare from antiquity to the present day. The book treats the history of all aspects of the subject: the development of warfare on land, sea and air; weapons and technology; strategy and defense; discipline and intelligence; mercenaries and standing armies; cavalry and infantry; […]
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Title: Cables from Kabul: The Inside Story of the West’s Afghanistan Campaign
Author: Sherard Cowper-Coles
Book Description:
A frank and honest memoir by Britain’s former ambassador to Kabul which provides a unique, high-level insight into Western policy in Afghanistan. For three years, from 2007 until 2010, Sherard Cowper-Coles was on the diplomatic frontline in Kabul as the West’s mission in Afghanistan sank deeper into crisis. First as British Ambassador and, later, as […]
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Title: American Military History, vol. 2, The United States Army in a Global Era, 1917-2008
Author: Richard W. Stewart
Book Description:
Created initially as a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps textbook, this second volume in a two-volume overview of the Army’s story covers the period from World War I to the early days of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Written in an engaging style and enhanced by sophisticated graphics and recommended readings, the work is an […]
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Title: The AEF Way of War: The American Army and Combat in World War I
Author: Mark E. Grotelueschen
Book Description:
This exemplary case study of doctrinal and tactical innovation under fire shows how four divisions of the American Expeditionary Forces adapted, or failed to adapt, to conditions on the Western Front during World War I. The 1st and 2d Divisions perfected artillery-infantry liaison so that by November 1918 they had achieved “state-of-the-art” tactical skills. Both […]
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Title: Battle Cry Of Freedom: The Civil War Era
Author: James M. McPherson
Book Description:
Recounts the momentous episodes that preceded the American Civil War, is a chronicle of the war itself, and includes the author’s view on such matters as the slavery expansion issue in the 1850s, the origins of the Republican Party, the causes of secession, internal dissent and anti-war opposition in the North and the South, and […]
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