August 5, 2011
Military Book Reviews–Help!
I have a list from the USMC of books suggested for soldiers interested in learning more about the military. I’ve posted book reviews of as many as I’ve read with a summary of what the book’s about, but I’ve barely made a dent in the list. There are dozens I haven’t goteen to and won’t for many months.
If you’ve read any of the books on this list, I’d be thrilled to link to your review or post it on this blog. Just add a comment here and I’ll do the rest.
I have a lot of followers who email me regularly about how much they enjoy the blog so I’m eager to provide this as a resource for them. I’m also a writer for Examiner so I cross-post my articles there. Thanks for your help!
Thanks to D.W. Taylor for sharing this list…
Private, Private First Class, Lance Corporal
| Forester | Rifleman Dodd |
| Heinlein | Starship Troopers |
| Hubbard | A Message to Garcia |
| Miller | The Bridge at Dong-Ha |
| Simmons | U.S. Marines: 1775-1975 |
| Various | U.S. Constitution |
| Webb | Fields of Five |
Corporal, Sergeant
| Barber | The War of the Running Dogs: The Malayan Emergency, 1948-1962 |
| Campbell | The Old Man’s Trail |
| Card | Ender’s Game |
| Chapin | Uncommon Men: Sergeants Major of the Marine Corps |
| Crane | The Red Badge of Courage |
| Davis | Marine: The Life of Lt Gen & USMC (Ret) Lewis B. (Chesty) Puller |
| Hammel | Fire in the Streets: The Battle for Hue, Tet 1968 |
| Leckie | The Buffalo Soldiers: A Narrative of the Negro Cavalry in the West |
| Marshall | Soldier’s Load and the Mobility of a Nation |
| McCormick | The Right Kind of War |
| Schell | Battle Leadership |
| Swinton | The Defense of Duffer’s Drift |
| Thomason | Fix Bayonets! |
| Uris | Battle Cry |
| West | The Village |
Staff Sergeant, Warrant Officer, Chief Warrant Officer 2, Warrant Officer 3, Second Lieutenant, First Lieutenant
| Amrose | Band of Brothers: E Co. 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne: From Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest |
| Ambrose | Pegasus Bridge: June 6, 1944 |
| Asprey | War in the Shadows: The Guerilla in History |
| Collins | Common Sense Training: A Working Philosophy for Leaders |
| English & Gudmundsson | On Infantry |
| Fuller | Grant and Lee: A Study in Personality and Generalship |
| Giap | How We Won the War |
| Hagan | American Gunboat Diplomacy and the Old Navy, 1877-1889 |
| Holmes | Acts of War: The Behavior of Men in Battle |
| Hynes | Flights of Passage: Reflections of a World War II Aviator |
| Keegan | The Face of Battle |
| Laquer & Alexander | Terrorism Reader |
| Liddell Hart | Strategy |
| Lind | Maneuver Warfare Handbook |
| Manning | The Middle Parts of Fortune: Somme and Ancre |
| Moore & Galloway | We Were Soldiers Once and Young: La Drang, The Battle that Changed the War in Vietnam |
| Moskin | The U.S. Marine Corps Story |
| Moskos | The Military: More Than Just a Job |
| Nolan | Operation Buffalo: USMC Fight for the DMZ |
| Nye | Challenge of Command: A Reading for Military Excellence |
| Rommel | Attacks |
| Ross | Iwo Jima: Legacy of Valor |
| Sajer | The Forgotten Soldier: The Classic World War II Autobiography |
| Scales | Firepower in Limited War |
| Shaara | The Killer Angels |
| Sherrod | Tarawa: The Story of a Battle |
| Sulzberg | The Fall of Eagles |
| Sun Tzu | Art of War |
| Various | U.S. Constitution |
| Willock | Unaccustomed to Fear: A Biography of the Late General Roy S. Gieger |
Gunnery Sergeant, First Seargeant, Master Sergeant, Chief Warrant Officer 4, Captain
| Ardant Du Picq | Battle Studies: Ancient and Modern Battles |
| Chaliand | Guerrilla Strategies: A Historical Anthology from the Long March to Afghanistan |
| Doughty | The Breaking Point: Sedan and the Fall of France, 1940 |
| Fall | Street Without Joy |
| Hackett | Profession of Arms |
| Hastings | Battle for the Falklands |
| Heinl | Victory at High Tide: The Inchon-Seoul Campaign |
| Higgenbotham | The War of American Independence: Military Attitudes, Policies, and Practice |
| Hoffman | Once a Legend:”Red Mike” Edson of the Marine Raiders |
| Hooker | Maneuver Warfare: An Anthology |
| Horne | The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916 |
| Infantry School (U.S.) | Infantry in Battle |
| Isley & Crowl | The U.S. Marines and Amphibious War: Its Theory, and its Practice in the Pacific |
| Keegan | The Price of Admiralty: The Evolution of Naval Warfare |
| Krulak | First to Fight: An Inside View of the U.S. Marine Corps |
| Lupfer | The Dynamics of Doctrine: The Changes in German Tactical Doctrine During the First World War |
| MacArthur | Reminiscences |
| McDonald | Company Commander |
| Mao Tse-Tung | Mao Tse-Tung on Guerilla Warfare |
| McDonough | Defense of Hill 781 |
| McPherson | Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era |
| Mellenthin | Panzer Battles: A Study of the Employment of Armor in the Decond World War |
| Meyer | Company Command: The Bottom Line |
| Millett & Maslowski | For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America |
| Moorehead | Galipoli |
| Moran | The Anatomy of Courage |
| Myrer | One an Eagle |
| Navmc 2890 | Small Wars Manual |
| Newman | Follow Me: Human Element in Leadership |
| O’Ballance | No Victor, No Vanquished: Yom Kippur War |
| Peppers | History of U.S. Military Logistics, 1935-1985 |
| Puller | Fortunate Son |
| Sears | Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam |
| Sledge | With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa |
| Smith | Douglas Southall Freeman on Leadership |
| Summers | On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War |
| Turley | The Easter Offensive, Vietnam, 1972 |
| Van Creveld | Airpower and Maneuver Warfare |
Major, Chief Warrent Officer 5
| Baynes | Morale: A Study of Men and Courage |
| Catton | Grant Takes Command |
| Clausewitz | On War |
| D’este | Patton: A Genius for War |
| Fall | Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu |
| Fehrenbach | This Kind of War: A Study in Unpreparedness |
| Frank | Guadalcanal: The Definitive Account |
| Fraser | Knight’s Cross: A Life of Field Marshall Erwin Rommel |
| Griffith | Forward into Battle: Fighting Tactics from Waterloo to Vietnam |
| Guevara | Che Guevara on Guerilla Warfare |
| Hammel | Chosin: Heroic Ordeal of the Korean War |
| Higginbotham | George Washington and the American Military Tradition |
| Lejeune | Reminiscences of a Marine |
| Mersky | U.S. Marine Corps Aviation |
| Paret | Makers of Modern Steategy: From Maciavelli to the Nuclear Age |
| Prange | At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor |
| Robertson | Dieppe: The Shame and the Glory |
| Schwarzkopf | It Doesn’t Take a Hero |
| Sherrod | History of Marine Corps Aviation in WW2 |
| Shy | A People Numerous and Armed: Reflections on the Military Struggle for American Independence |
| Slim | Defeat into Victory |
| Spector | Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan |
| Van Crevald | Command in war |
| Van Crevald | Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton |
Master Gunnery Sergeant, Sergeant Major, Lieutenent Colonel
| Baer | One Hundred Years of Seapower: The U.S. Navy, 1890-1990 |
| Bennett | Ultra in the West: The Normandy Campaign, 1944-45 |
| Buell | The Quiet warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance |
| Gordon & Trainor | The General’s War: The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf |
| James | The Year of MacArthur |
| Keiser | The U.S. Marine Corps and Defense Unification, 1944-47: The Politics of Survival |
| Kohn | Eagle and Sword: The Federalists and the Creation of the Military Establishment in America, 1783-1802 |
| Krepinevich | The Army and Vietnam |
| Long | Personal Memoirs of Ulusses S. Grant |
| Millett | In Many a Strife: General Gerald C. Thomas and the U.S. Marine Corps |
| Murray | The Making of Strategy |
| Newman | Follow Me II: More on the Human Element in Leadership |
| Pagonis | Moving Mountains: Lessons in Leadership and Logistics from the Gulf War |
| Travers | How the War Was Won |
| Vaux | Take That Hill: Royal Marines in the Falklands War |
| White | The Enlightened Soldier: Scharnhorst and the Militarische Gesellschaft in Berlin, 1801-1805 |
| Woodward | 100 Days: The Memoirs of the Falklands Battle Group Commander |
COLONEL
| Ambrose | The Supreme Commander: The War Years of General Dwight D. Eisenhower |
| Brennan | Foundations of Moral Obligation: The Stockdale Course |
| Chandler | The Campaigns of Napoleon |
| Cohen | Military Misfortunes: The Anatomy of Failure in War |
| Cray | General of the Army: George C. Marshall, Soldier and Statesman |
| Doughty | Seeds of Disaster: The Development of French Army Doctrine, 1919-1939 |
| Eccles | Logistics in the National Defense |
| Flicke | War Secrets in the Ether: The use of Signals Intelligence by the German Military in WW2 |
| Forester | The General |
| Friedman | From Beirut to Jerusalem |
| Horne | A Savage War of Peace: Algeria, 1954-1962 |
| Horne | To Lose a Battle:, France 1940 |
| Kennedy | The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery |
| Millett & Murray | Military Innovation in the Interwar Period |
| Murray | Luftwaffe |
| O’Neill | A Democracy at war: America’s Fight at Home and Abroad in WW2 |
| Palmer | The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam |
| Potter | Nimitz |
| Ridgeway | Korean War |
| Ryan | A Bridge to Far |
| Shulimson | The Marine Corps Search for a Mission, 1880-1898 |
| Simpkin | Race to the Swift: Thoughts on Twenty First Century Warfare |
| Smythe | Pershing, General of the Armies |
| Thucydides | The Peloponnesian War |
| Travers | The Killing Ground: The British Army, the Western Front, and the Emergence of Modern Warfare, 1900-1918 |
| Van Tien Dung | Our Great Spring Victory: An Account of the Liberation of South Vietnam |
| Vandergrift | Once a Marine: The Memoirs of General A.A. Vandergrift, USMC |
| Weigley | Eisenhower’s Lieutenants: The Campaign of France and Germany, 1944-45 |
Generals
| Bartlett | Lejeune: A Marine’s Life, 1867-1942 |
| Fuller | Generalship, Its Diseases and Their Cure: A Study of the Personal Factor in Command |
| Halberstam | The Best and the Brightest |
| Kagan | On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace |
| Kennedy | Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500-2000 |
| Kissinger | Diplomacy |
| MacDonald | Giap: The Victor in Vietnam |
| McNamara | In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam |
| Moore | A Woman at War: Storming Kuwait with the U.S. Marines |
| Murray | Airwar in the Gulf |
| Newman | What Are Generals Made of? |
| Powell | My American Journey |
| Royster | Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman |
| Schmidt | Maverick Marine: General Smedley Butler and the Contradictions of American Military History |
| Sheehan | A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam |
| Timberg | The Nightingale’s Song |
| Twining | No Bended Knee |
All Marines – Military Affairs and National Security Issues
| Greenwood & Neimeyer | America’s Cutting Edge: U.S. Marine Corps Roles and Missions (Roles and Missions) |
| Smith | Angels from the Sea: Relief Operations in Bangladesh (Peace Operations) |
| Drew | NATO: From Berin to Bosnia (Peace Operations) |
| McKenzie | Peacekeeper (Peace Operations) |
| Murray | 1995-1996 Brassey’s Mershon American Defense Annual (Revolutions in Military Affairs) |
| Toffler & Toffler | War and Anti-War (Revolutions in Military Affairs) |
| Scwartau | Information Warfare (Information Warfare) |
| Campen | The First Information War (Information Warfare) |
| Libicki | What Is Information Warfare? (Information Warfare) |
| Van Ham | Managing Non-Proliferation Regimes in the 1990s (International Nuclear Proliferation) |
| Reiner | Nuclear Non-Proliferation (International Nuclear Proliferation) |
| Braestrup | Big Story (Military and the Media) |
| Fialka | Hotel Warriors (Military and the Media) |
All Marines – Professional and Societal Issues
| Covey | Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (Professional Development) |
| Smith | Taking Charge, Making the Right Choices (Professional Development) |
| Walton | The Deming Management Method (Professional Development) |
| Senge | The Fifth Discipline (Professional Development) |
| Thomas | Beyond Race and Gender (Cultural Diversity) |
| Buchen | Cultural Diversity Manual (Cultural Diversity) |
| Hacker | Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal (Cultural Diversity) |
| Bennett | Book of Virtues (Ethics) |
| Carter | Integrity (Ethics) |
| Various | Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces (Women in the Military) |
| Webb | Step Forward (Women in the Military) |
| Yianilos | Woman Marine (Women in the Military) |
| Elshtain | Women and War (Women in the Military) |
Jacqui Murray is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy midshipman. She is webmaster for five blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com, and a weekly contributor to Write Anything and Technology in Education. Currently, she’s working on a techno-thriller that should be ready this summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.
