Recommended Reading List
Books are listed in alphabetical order by author’s last name within general topics. No particular reading order is suggested except that The Looming Tower is without question the first book you should read:
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  Wright, Lawrence. The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. Vintage Books, 2006.
The best written book to understand the events and personalities leading to the attacks against the United States on 11 September 2001. Lawrence Wright provides a thoroughly researched book that reads like a novel in pace and style. Wright explains the historical context and foundation of Osama bin Laden's beliefs and the logic of his actions. |
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Narrative
  Card, Orson Scott. Ender’s Game. Tor Books, 1985
An entertaining explanation of the progress from understanding to empathy and then to victory.   Heinlein, Robert A. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. 1965.
A science-fiction expression of revolution: what it takes, who leads them, and how they succeed.   Singer, P.W. Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century. The Penguin Press, 2009.
An impressive discussion on the role and issues associated with robots on the battlefield. |
  Gibson, William. Neuromancer. 1984.
There is a single scene in the book that is worth reading the entire book for where an attack is made against a fixed site. The attack provides a completely different perspective on the meaning of combined arms: physical violence, cyber-attack, neurological attack, popular dissent.   Niven, Larry and Jerry Pournelle. The Mote in God’s Eye. Pocket Books, 1991
The single best example of mirror-imaging as humans come into contact with the first alien sentient species. Each side is shown having their own perspectives of what is transpiring.   Swinton, Ernest. The Defence of Duffer’s Drift. 1904.
A short book providing insight into the process by which one might turn lessons observed into lessons learned. |
ISIS
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Middle East
  Fromkin, David. A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East. Henry Holt and Company, 1989.
The issues present in the Middle East were created through past decisions. Some of the most critical of those decisions happened during World War One. The evolution of thought and the actions directed by that evolving thought is at the core of A Peace to End All Peace. |
  Helfont, Samuel. Compulsion in Religion: Saddam Hussein, Islam, and the Roots of Insurgencies in Iraq. Oxford University Press, 2018.
An excellent source for insight into Iraq pre-2003. Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq by controlling the narrative space. Specifically, he controlled religious instruction and discourse through decades of manipulation, coercion, and intimidation. Failure to understand the effort required to control the religious landscape ensured ignorant decisions by occupying powers. It is also fair to suggest that even if US administrators had understood, the very fabric of the US civil-religious discourse would have prevented any American-led occupation from controlling the explosion of religious sectarianism with the necessary force |
Military History
World War I |
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Rommel, Erwin. Attacks. Athena Press, 2011.
Rommel’s lessons from his command experience in WWI.
Rommel’s lessons from his command experience in WWI.
World War II
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  Sledge, E.B. With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa. Presidio Press, 2007.
This is a direct explanation of experiences in the Pacific theater in WWII. This provides excellent opportunity for discussion on ethics and behavior. |
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Korea |
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  Fehrenbach, T.R. This Kind of War: The Classic Korean War History. Macmillan, 1963.
There is no better single volume work on this war and the dynamics associated with it. In this you will see what happens when a commander thinks he understands the enemy, but really doesn’t. |
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Vietnam
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  Moore, Harold G. and Joseph L. Galloway. We Were Soldiers Once … and Young: Ia Drang, the Battle that Changed the War in Vietnam. Harper Perennial Publishers, 1993.
How to prepare for and then function in an aberrational environment, or not.   Fall, Bernard B. Hell in a Very Small Place. Vintage Books, 1966.
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  Willbanks, James H. Abandoning Vietnam: How American Left and South Vietnam Lost Its War. University Press of Kansas, 2004.
A very well written discussion of the end of the Vietnam War and the various elements that conspired to lead toward American defeat.  
Fall, Bernard B., Street Without Joy. Stackpole Books, 1961.
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These are profound and important books for understanding the Other. These books teach this critical concept through the lens of the French military in Indochina in 1954.
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