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Compiled List of recommended books

CanadianFFL

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List of books compiled from sources of recommended reading from various defense forces across the the world. If you wish to gain historical perspective on warfare, knowledge on human factors in combat and decision making and leadership then pick any of the books below. I've read quite a few of these myself and highly recommend them.

If you have other recommendations, please comment below.


Books:
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
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: Terroism 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
Willock: Unaccoustomed to Fear: A Biography of the Late General Roy S. Gieger
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
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
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
Moorehead: Galipoli
Moran: The Anatomy of Courage
Navmc 2890: Small Wars Manual
Newman: Follow Me: Human Element in Leadership
O'Ballance: No Victor, No Vanquished: Yom Kippur War
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
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
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
Slim: Defeat into Victory
Spector: Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan
Van Crevald: Command in war
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
Krepinevich: The Army and Vietnam
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
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
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
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
Weigley: Eisenhower's Lieutenants: The Campaign of France and Germany, 1944-45
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
McNamara: In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam
Newman: What Are Generals Made of?
Royster: Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman
Sheehan: A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam
Timberg: The Nightingale's Song
Twining: No Bended Knee
Smith: Angels from the Sea: Relief Operations in Bangladesh (Peace Operations)
Drew: NATO: From Berin to Bosnia (Peace Operations)
McKenzie: Peacekeeper (Peace Operations)
Fialka: Hotel Warriors (Military and the Media)
 

CanadianFFL

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Reading The Republic, by Plato at the moment. very interesting and I highly recommend it.
 

A1200

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You can download from wikipedia a free book about Greco-Persian Wars ,a must for every military man around the word to see how importan is the strategy. How the Greeks were able to defeat the Persians with strategy even though they were outnumbered.I think is the best time to start reading it now that the battle of Camarón date is near.Here is the link : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book:First_Persian_invasion_of_Greece
 

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Nice list, wont run out of reading material any time soon if I find the books.
Theres one I definetely recommend to anyone who can understand portuguese (sadly theres no translation I am aware of), "Tempos de Inquietude e de Sonho" by Raul Soares da Silveira, its his biography, he fought in Africa in WWII with the Free French (He was in the 13 DBLE). His account of Bir Hakeim is really interesting, specially when they get lost in the desert during the retreat! I think he was the only brazilian who spoke portuguese in the FFL at the time (there was another guy who was born here but raised in Uruguai).View attachment 3122
 

CanadianFFL

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Professor James Sheehan, Standford university on International Systems:

"In the society of states, unlike the societies in which we are familiar with, there are rules, but there is no one to enforce them. In other words, there is no 911 to call. You’ve got mutual needs, you've got individual desires, you've got rules and customs and laws that try to regulate and conciliate states. But if someone doesn't want to play by these rules, there is no one that you can call who will make them conform"
 

G.I. Joe

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I found Sun Tzu 'The Art of War' to be priceless - I have never had the chance to apply what I learnt in a military compacity but was able to apply it to business practices and found it extremely helpful and practical - especially from an owner/managerial viewpoint
 

CanadianFFL

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I found Sun Tzu 'The Art of War' to be priceless - I have never had the chance to apply what I learnt in a military compacity but was able to apply it to business practices and found it extremely helpful and practical - especially from an owner/managerial viewpoint

Yes The Art of War is one of my favorite books.

Just one thing guys, it would be best to not quote the original post. Otherwise we will be scrolling down the page for five minutes to see new posts.
 

RMD

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Who the hell reads the Art of War? Thought it a book college kids read to try to impress gulible girls.
 

CanadianFFL

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Who the hell reads the Art of War? Thought it a book college kids read to try to impress gulible girls.

Your comment proves you have obviously not read the book. The Art of War is a must read because it provides logical and interesting approaches to conflict and competition. I'll agree some concepts explained in the book may be a bit dated, but there are several that can and still apply to sound strategic planning today, which is amazing considering the book was written 2500 years ago.

Edit: good thing about old books, no copyrights. Here is a PDF of the book, I encourage you to give it a look.

http://www.artofwarsuntzu.com/Art of War PDF.pdf

Another Edit: When the former US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates went before the Congress to explain how he would protect America, he quoted George Washington and Sun Tzu. If the secretary of defense of the worlds most powerful nations stills believes Sun Tzu to be relevant, I see no reason why you would not benefit from reading it.
 

RMD

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Your comment proves you have obviously not read the book. The Art of War is a must read because it provides logical and interesting approaches to conflict and competition. I'll agree some concepts explained in the book may be a bit dated, but there are several that can and still apply to sound strategic planning today, which is amazing considering the book was written 2500 years ago.

Edit: good thing about old books, no copyrights. Here is a PDF of the book, I encourage you to give it a look.

http://www.artofwarsuntzu.com/Art of War PDF.pdf

I've held it in my hands. I'm no General MacArthur though.
 

G.I. Joe

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Who the hell reads the Art of War?

Entrepreneurs, Leaders, and Senior Management Officials... just to name a few ;)

Thought it a book college kids read to try to impress gulible girls.

Gullible girls would be far to stupid to be impressed by anything you read in a book like that.... :p Not sure what you would quote to them.... maybe Justin Beaver lyrics.... :D
 

RMD

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Entrepreneurs, Leaders, and Senior Management Officials... just to name a few ;)

Sure, sure. Be sure to add wankers to that list.

Gullible girls would be far to stupid to be impressed by anything you read in a book like that.... :p Not sure what you would quote to them.... maybe Justin Beaver lyrics.... :D

Mate, in the context of which you & Canadian (& I, & many ******* others) would read & understand the book it should be re-titled "The Art of Middle Managment". You're no entrepreneur, leader or an official of any sort. You're on this site spouting all sorts of nonsense. So, yes, the best you can hope for is middle management, & you had better come to grips with that if you hold your (FFL) hopes dear. You're sticking your neck way way out there, on this site at least. I'm not sure why others haven't said so yet.

Maybe it's booze speaking, or that my misses is on my case. I'm just a cranky bastard.
 

G.I. Joe

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Sure, sure. Be sure to add wankers to that list.



Mate, in the context of which you & Canadian (& I, & many ******* others) would read & understand the book it should be re-titled "The Art of Middle Managment". You're no entrepreneur, leader or an official of any sort. You're on this site spouting all sorts of nonsense. So, yes, the best you can hope for is middle management, & you had better come to grips with that if you hold your (FFL) hopes dear. You're sticking your neck way way out there, on this site at least. I'm not sure why others haven't said so yet.

Maybe it's booze speaking, or that my misses is on my case. I'm just a cranky bastard.

LOL! You would know nothing of what I am or are not. Take a good look in the mirror regarding the spouting ;) - shit just look at what you just wrote and you have gone far enough :) 'Booze talking', 'wifey problems'... 'hot headed angry men' :D just what the Legion needs.... :p
 

CanadianFFL

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RMD, if you got nothing constructive to add to the thread i'll politely ask you feck off. : )

G.I. Joe, we've both read the book and learned from it, if RMD thinks this book is for "wankers" then thats his lost and should none of our concern, so just drop it mate.

I dont want this thread turning into a pointless argument
 

G.I. Joe

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RMD, if you got nothing constructive to add to the thread i'll politely ask you feck off. : )

G.I. Joe, we've both read the book and learned from it, if RMD thinks this book is for "wankers" then thats his lost and should none of our concern, so just drop it mate.

I dont want this thread turning into a pointless argument

Good call, dropped ;)
 

RMD

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LOL! You would know nothing of what I am or are not. Take a good look in the mirror regarding the spouting ;) - shit just look at what you just wrote and you have gone far enough :) 'Booze talking', 'wifey problems'... 'hot headed angry men' :D just what the Legion needs....

Mate I'm not one to spout & not feel bad for it. That why I mentioned it. Anything I say on here is in humour. Now I'm not saying its in good humour, more often than not its the opposite, but at least I'm fully aware that I'm an intolerable cunt. & I do try to keep my dribble to a minimum.

Now I never said those that have read that one book are wankers, I simply meant those that go on about what books they have read are. I can't stand the type. What your type is, you're right, I don't know but its more the case that those that run there mouths usually couldn't run a bath.

Now go take a cold bath with your books ya lousy bastard.
 

G.I. Joe

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Mate I'm not one to spout & not feel bad for it. That why I mentioned it. Anything I say on here is in humour. Now I'm not saying its in good humour, more often than not its the opposite, but at least I'm fully aware that I'm an intolerable cunt. & I do try to keep my dribble to a minimum.

Now I never said those that have read that one book are wankers, I simply meant those that go on about what books they have read are. I can't stand the type. What your type is, you're right, I don't know but its more the case that those that run there mouths usually couldn't run a bath.

Now go take a cold bath with your books ya lousy bastard.

I usually just have a shower.... I can never seem to get that plug thingy in the circle thingy.... :D
 

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Paper never refused ink. No matter what words are written on it. You've now descended to name calling, go stand in the corner the lot of ye!
 

G.I. Joe

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Paper never refused ink. No matter what words are written on it. You've now descended to name calling, go stand in the corner the lot of ye!

Yes Sir
icon_cry.gif
 
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