The Best Defense Books: Tom Ricks on the Best Military History

Tom Ricks, whose second book on Iraq, The Gamble, is even better than his first, the bestselling Fiasco, has been blogging at The Best Defense at Foreign Policy for the past few months. We've talked to Ricks a number of times for his books, most recently our interview for The Gamble, and he's as big a book listmaker as we are--when Fiasco came out he recommended his "top 10 books to understand the Iraq war that weren't about Iraq" (most of which also became the reading list for the officers who led the surge and are featured in The Gamble). And yesterday on The Best Defense he listed his 10 books anyone interested in military history should read. Here's his list (you can read his full comments on the books in his post):

• Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer
• Battle Cry of Freedom by James M. McPherson
• Son of the Morning Star by Evan S. Connell
• Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose
• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
• With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa by E.B. Sledge
• Thunder Below! by Eugene Fluckey
• Korea: This Kind of War by T.R. Fehrenbach
• Achilles in Vietnam by Jonathan Shay
• The Nightingale's Song by Robert Timberg

--Tom

Comments

[yehiel on April 06, 2009 at 04:14 PM]

What about "killer Angels" by Michael Shaara?

[Chris on April 06, 2009 at 04:21 PM]

The best book to understand battle and military history is "Face of Battle" by John Keegan.

[milesfromkansas on April 06, 2009 at 04:26 PM]

I've read a third of the titles - thanks for the list! I'd add The Korean War : Pusan to Chosin, Knox and Foote's Civil War trilogy, though McPherson's does a very thorough job in one volume. And while it's more politics than combat, Tuchman's Guns of August is excellent.

[alvah halle on April 06, 2009 at 04:31 PM]

GOODBYE DARKNESS WILLIAM MANCHESTER

[alvah halle on April 06, 2009 at 04:33 PM]

Flags of our Fathers BRADLEY

[JonofAtlanta on April 06, 2009 at 04:53 PM]

off the top of my head:

1) Catch-22 is a one-note song that says literally NOTHING about war from the perspective of decision makers - I'm mystified by its inclusion

2) Victor Davis Hanson's 'Culture and Carnage' is quite good..

[W Cook on April 06, 2009 at 04:53 PM]

"We Were Soldiers Once and Young" by Hal Moore and Joseph Galloway
"Thud Ridge" and "Going Downtown" by Jack Broughton
"One Bullet Away" by Nathaniel Fick

[swassociates on April 06, 2009 at 05:04 PM]

How about "The Wild Blue" by Stephen Ambrose

[Teflon93 on April 06, 2009 at 05:12 PM]

This list is very disappointing.

Nothing here would even make my Top Ten:

1. David G. Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon
2. Peter B. Green, Alexander of Macedon 356-323 B.C.
3. Theodore Ayrault Dodge, Julius Caesar
4. Xenephon, The Anabasis
5. Karl von Clausewitz, On War
6. General George S. Patton, War As I Knew It
7. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, Attacks
8. U.S. Grant, Personal Memoirs
9. Dennis Showalter, Tannenburg: Clash of Empires
10. Sir Winston Churchill, The Great Crisis or The Second World War or From London to Ladysmith via Pretoria/Sir Ian Hamilton's March/The Story of the Malakand Field Force (okay, just about anything the Great Man wrote).

[John Hendrix on April 06, 2009 at 05:33 PM]

Uh, Catch 22 is not history, it is a novel. In a foreword Heller says something like "Those familial [island name] know that it is too small for all of the events depicted in this book." [island name] is the name of the island where Catch 22 was situated, I just cannot remember the name after all of these years.

Also, Catch 22 didn't even pretend to depict anything about WWII accurately; WWII was just a prop for the book.

So why did you include novel (i.e., Catch 22) in a list of military histories?

[betsybounds on April 06, 2009 at 05:34 PM]

Well I agree that Catch-22 is a one-note song that says literally nothing about war from the perspective of decision makers. But I think that was the point! Plus--it's fiction, where the others listed are history. Personally, I think the single most interesting character in Catch-22, the only one I remember clearly after all these many years, and probably the one with the most contemporary resonance, is Milo Minderbinder. Who can fail to see how relevant ol' Milo is? Is not The Potomac Goon Show selling "the taxpayers" Milo's Bill of Goods every blessed day?: "It's all part of the syndicate, and everyone has a share."

[Cookie the Dog's Owner on April 06, 2009 at 05:37 PM]

Permit me to add a few:

Civil War: anything by Bruce Catton.

World War 2 naval:
Jon Parshall & Anthony Tully, "Shattered Sword" -- best Midway book ever
John Lundstrom, "The First Team" -- about naval aviation in the first year of the war
James D. Hornfischer, "The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors" -- the engagement off Samar, the U.S. Navy's crowning moment of awesome

World war 2 land battles:
Ken Hechler, "The Bridge at Remagen"
Steven Ambrose, "Citizen Soldiers" and "D-Day"

World War 1 Naval: Edwin Hoyt, "The Last Cruise of the Emden"

Modern day:
Bing West, "The March Up"
Sean Naylor, "Not a Good Day to Die" -- about Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan

[wolfwalker on April 06, 2009 at 05:37 PM]

A very close competitor to Thunder Below! is Clear the Bridge! by Richard H. O'Kane (R Adm USN, Retired).

[betsybounds on April 06, 2009 at 05:41 PM]

While we're speaking of Churchill: How about "The River War"?

[AntonK on April 06, 2009 at 05:43 PM]

In no particular order:

Tet / Oberdorfer
Hamburger Hill / Zaffiri
Fire in the Streets / Hammel
Crisis in Command / Gabriel & Savage
The Real Bravo Two Zero / Asher
Ghost Soldiers / Sides
Mask of Command / Keegan
Caen: Anvil of Victory / McKee
Decision in Normandy / D'Este
Welcome to Flander's Fields / Dancocks
G.I. Diary / Parks
The Tunnels of Cu Chi / Mangold & Penycate

[betsybounds on April 06, 2009 at 05:51 PM]

Shelby Foote's three-volume "The Civil War."

Gosh, there are so many. I don't see how anyone can pick a top 10!

Thucydides' "The Pelopennesian Wars."

James Bradley's "Flags of Our Fathers."

It's well-nigh impossible to pick just 10!

[phaedruscj on April 06, 2009 at 06:07 PM]

Army at Dawn by Rick Atkinson WWII North Africa

The Day of Battle by Rick Atkinson WWII Sicily and Italy

[milesfromkansas on April 06, 2009 at 06:14 PM]

Eugene Sledge's book on the Pacific war would be in my top one of the best book about WWII. As for fiction, I would add Mailer's Naked and the Dead.

[Kevin on April 06, 2009 at 06:19 PM]

This is just US military history. Without anything (excepting their interaction with the US) about China, Russia, Japan, India, the medieval, classical or ancient world or even modern Europe it ignores most of the world's experience in military affairs. Nothing about Napoleon, Caesar, Alexander, Ghenghis Khan, Frederick the Great, etc.
Kevin

[Scott on April 06, 2009 at 06:21 PM]

This list is essentially meaningless. Yes, anyone who wants to be knowledgeble of military history, especially American military history, should have read these books. It is in no way a list of the most important works in military history. That list would be very different and have to include The Art of War (Sun Tzu), On War (Clauswitz), History of the Peloponnesian War (Thucydides) and others.

A much more interesting question is: What works, which are NOT about the military, military history or combat, are most important for the military historian to have read?

[MilitaryHistoryFan on April 06, 2009 at 06:23 PM]

I a prior version of this class in college, and the reading list is still among the most interesting of any I've come across on these topics.

http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic65249.files/Gov1730_Syllabus_2006.htm

[Jon on April 06, 2009 at 06:33 PM]

Not a bad bunch of books on Rick's list, but many of them are really not military history. More political. That's Ricks for you.

[John D on April 06, 2009 at 06:40 PM]

If you read anything in your life time, the Bruce Catton trilogy:

Mr. Lincoln's Army
Glory Road
Stillness at Appomatox

are a must read.

[davidingeorgia on April 06, 2009 at 06:50 PM]

no Victor Davis Hanson, no Shelby Foote, no lots of others more deserving that what's on here...not much of a list...as someone else said above, it's more a list for those who want their military history with a certain political bias...no thanks.

[Punditarian on April 06, 2009 at 06:52 PM]

Well, I certainly agree with the choice E.B. SLedge's "Old Breed." John Keegan's "Face of Battle, too." Karl von CLausewitz is of course essential. American commanders in the XIXth century were more likely to have read Antoine-Henri Jomini's "Precis de l'art de la guerre," however, (it was one reason that French was an essential part of the West Point curriculum) and I believe Jomini's analysis of Napoleonic strategy, rather than von Clausewitz's, still forms the basis of our commanders' education. I would also add William Tecumseh Sherman's memoirs to the list. A recent novel that was reported to have enjoyed popularity with American soldiers in Iraq is Steven Pressfield's "Gates of Fire."

[Jim on April 06, 2009 at 06:59 PM]

War is too vast a thing to encompass in a couple books. These lists are in vain. To understand something about a war, you would need to read several perspectives. Even then, you won't know what the people who were there knew but maybe you might know how some of the pieces fit together. Take Viet Nam. How did we get there? Hell In A Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu, Bernard Fall. What happened while we were there? Viet Nam At War, Phillip Richardson (best after you've read 15 or 20 books on the war); Summons of the Trumpet, Dave Palmer. What was it like? Platoon Leader, James McDonough; We Were Soldiers Once, And Young, Joe Galloway; The Siege of Khe Sanh, Eric Hammel; All We Had, Al Santoli; Chickenhawk, Robert Mason; The Hill Fights, Edward Murphy. Political conventional wisdom on the war? A Bright and Shining Lie, Neil Sheehan. What did the other guys think? How We Won The War, Vo Nguyen Giap. What did it all mean? Fiction - The Short Timers, Gustav Hasford.

[rlwillis on April 06, 2009 at 07:04 PM]

Since the list includes literature, why not "The Red Badge of Courage" by Stephen Crane.

"The Civil War: A Narrative" by Shelby Foote.

"World War I" by S.L.A. Marshall was not bad.

[Andy on April 06, 2009 at 08:07 PM]

With all due respect to McPherson, Bruce Catton is by far the standard by which all other Civil War history ought to be judged.

[Cap'n Dan on April 06, 2009 at 08:37 PM]

I guess we've really forgotten Vietnam - I don't see "Street Without Joy" or "Dien Bien Phu" on any of these lists. Nor do I see "Dispatches", Michael Herr's great book of his time there as a correspondent. Given that it's apparent from The Surge that we've finally relearned the lessons of counterinsurgency we paid so much for in that war, this surprises me.

[0311nowEOD on April 06, 2009 at 10:08 PM]

How about "Hell in a Very Small Place"? I don't think I've ever read a more moving account of a lost battle.

[Václav Šulik on April 07, 2009 at 05:04 AM]

This is a strange list - all US, 70% about the 20th century. (I've only read about half on Ricks list.)

I agree with the person above who nominated Thucydides' "The Peloponnesian Wars."

A broader list, which encompasses Military History, but does not limit the subject to mere history (which Ricks doesn't with his choice of Catch-22) is the Marine Corps Reading List:

http://www.usna.edu/Library/Marineread.html

In addition to those, I'd include Ricks own "Making the Corps" and a history based novel "Killing Rommel" by Steven Pressfield.

[Lou Gots on April 07, 2009 at 05:45 AM]

I would add Shelby Foote, and Panzer Battles by von Mellenthin

[Dimitri Rotov on April 07, 2009 at 06:35 AM]

This list contains popular nonfiction - not military history nor military science.

Popular nonfiction is a branch of literature, not history nor science, in which the overriding organizational principle is reading quality and conformance with standards of good fiction writing (plotting, character development, story arc).

The entry "Achilles in Vietnam" is an exception here as is "Catch-22," which actuall is fiction.

With the proliferation of digital archives and source materials (including autobiographies, interviews, etc.) "anyone interested in military history" can get immediate satisfaction and should stop wasting time with the quasi-historical constructs of master storytellers.

(On a final note, to younger readers: I'm not sure why you would need reading lists on military history when there's a war to fight and you can enlist to create your own history.)

[Surellin on April 07, 2009 at 06:59 AM]

Oman's Art Of War In The Middle Ages. Elderly but essential, imnsho.

[E.M.H. on April 07, 2009 at 07:01 AM]

Damn... yehiel beat me to it. And so did all of you guys who beat me to Catton and Ambrose (grumble... ;) ). Here's a second vote for The Killer Angels, as well as just about anything by Ambrose (Band of Brothers, Citizen Soldier, etc.) and Catton.

Couple of more:

David Hackworth's About Face. He's got a distinct point of view, can be overly full of himself, and needs to be taken with a grain of salt. But his focus on at least trying to make the US Army get things right, even on the occasions where he himself veers wildly into the wrong, makes him an absolute must read.

Mark Bowden's Blackhawk Down. This was not written by an author with any idea of what the military should be like, so the versimillitude of the event shines through without any editing or coloring by a person with more experience than him. Yes, I know, that's a weird way to describe a work by someone who doesn't know all that much about the military, but seriously, his relative lack of knowledge actually works well in his favor for this book, and reveals things about the points-of-view of the troops on the ground that might have been lost by someone who knows a bit more about how the military works. Excellent read. It's definitely the definitive work on the Battle of Mogadishu for a reason.

[Jack Haley on April 07, 2009 at 07:12 AM]

SLA Marshal -- all of his works are excellent accounts from the soldiers and small unit leaders perspective.

A novel -- Once an Eagle -- is an interesting depiction of an officer's career path. it provides a stereotypical description of different types of how to define success (Sam Damon and Courtney Massingale) --

[Jaytee on April 07, 2009 at 07:24 AM]

So so list. It desperately needs Shelby Foote's Civil War series, Steve Pressfield's Gates of Fire and Alistair Horne's The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916. Honorable mention should go to Barb Tuchman's The Guns of August and William Manchester's Goodbye Darkness. Catch-22 is overrated and overwritten. I recently tried to reread and it aged poorly. It's influential but that's the problem. All the other "straight" reads capture the insanity of war much better than snarky Catch-22. Even Slaughterhause Five is better - if you're up for a counter-cultural take on war.

[tgs on April 07, 2009 at 07:58 AM]

I'm not that impressed with this list, but Ricks doesn't strike me as someone who goes very far outside his political comfort zone.

I'd add just for starters

Carnage and Culture and A War Like No Other both by VDH.

The Civil War: a Narrative Vol 1: Fort Sumter to Perryville, by Shelby Foot

The Second World War (all six volumes) by Winston Churchill

We were Soldiers Once= And Young: Ia Drang--The Battle That Changed The War In Vietnam, by Harold G. Moore

Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden

Storm on the Horizon: Khafji--The Battle That Changed the Course of the Gulf War by David J. Morris

[Jonathan on April 07, 2009 at 08:16 AM]

"Clear the Bridge!" by Richard O'Kane is a better read and debatably written by a better skipper than Fluckey, and that's high praise. Both are worth reading for their contrasts in tactics and temperament. Fluckey is a wolf-pack-leading company man comfortable improving and expanding on standard submarine tactics. O'Kane is an innovative and iconoclastic loner who camps out in the merchant shipping routes he knew from before the war with half the ship's company on a custom-welded observation platform watching the sky through 7 x 50s for any sign of a threat, running his radar almost never, seldom moving except to attack. Both books are highly entertaining.

[Strabo on April 07, 2009 at 12:15 PM]

I agree that it's hard to come up with only ten; apart from some of the other greats mentioned (Thucydides, Xenophon, The Killer Angels, We Were Soldiers), I could add Street Without Joy by Bernard Fall, In Flanders Fields (Wolff), Caesar's Gallic War, The Generalship of Alexander the Great (J. F. C. Fuller), Hannibal (T. A. Dodge - also wonderful info about the Roman army of the Republic), Guderian's memoirs, Von Rundstedt's memoirs, Stalingrad (Beevor), The Unknown Soldier (Vaino Linna), The Raid (Schemmer - about Son Tay), A Stillness at Appomattox (Catton)...

[Bradley on April 07, 2009 at 05:11 PM]

How about "Once an Eagle" by Anton Myrer

[Adam H on April 08, 2009 at 04:32 AM]

The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916, by Alistar Horne

The Heights of Courage: A Tank Leader's War On the Golan, by Avigdor Kahalani

Brotherhood of Warriors: Behind Enemy Lines with a Commando in One of the World's Most Elite Counterterrorism Units, by Aaron Cohen, Douglas Century

As for "works, which are NOT about the military, military history or combat," I'd suggest:
The Arab Mind, by Raphael Patai

[Arthur on April 08, 2009 at 07:04 PM]

The idea that "Catch 22" is military history is laugh inducing.

[Adam H on April 11, 2009 at 04:43 AM]

The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916, by Alistair Horne

Russia at War: 1941-1945, by Alexander Werth

The Heights of Courage: A Tank Leader's War On the Golan, by Avigdor Kahalani

Brotherhood of Warriors: Behind Enemy Lines with a Commando in One of the World's Most Elite Counterterrorism Units, by Aaron Cohen and Douglas Century

[Kalroy on April 16, 2009 at 01:43 PM]

Cornelius Ryan's work. Nigal Bagnall's "Punic War." Also a bunch already mentioned in the other posts. "Catch-22?" "Fiasco?" I thought this was a list of historical work, not fiction.

Kalroy