Service Reading List: USMC Reading List - Senior Level - Officer
Marine Corps Reading List for senior officers. Colonel through General.
Title:
The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations
Author:
Book Description:
In a classic work, Samuel P. Huntington challenges most of the old assumptions and ideas on the role of the military in society. Stressing the value of the military outlook for American national policy, Huntington has performed the distinctive task of developing a general theory […]
Book Description:
How the US uses economic embargoes and financial tools as weapons against terrorist groups and “rogue states” such as North Korea, Iran and Syria. Juan Zarate, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is a former federal prosecutor who joined the […]
Book Description:
Examines the psychological devastation of war by comparing the soldiers of Homer’s Iliad with Vietnam veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Although the Iliad was written 27 centuries ago, it has much to teach about combat trauma, as do the more recent, compelling voices and […]
Book Description:
Biography of Abraham Lincoln, centered on his mastery of men and how it shaped the most significant presidency in the nation’s history. Throughout the turbulent 1850s, each of his “rivals” energetically sought the presidency as the conflict over slavery was leading inexorably to secession and […]
Book Description:
The War That Ended Peace brings vividly to life the military leaders, politicians, diplomats, bankers, and the extended, interrelated family of crowned heads across Europe who failed to stop the descent into war: in Germany, the mercurial Kaiser Wilhelm II and the chief of the […]
Book Description:
This book looks into the future to provide some intriguing answers about the ways Western armed forces—which have traditionally been trained to fight conventional, not guerrilla, warfare—may need to evolve.
[…]
Title:
DERELICTION OF DUTY: LYNDON JOHNSON, ROBERT MCNAMARA, THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF, AND THE LIES THAT LED TO VIETNAM
Author:
Book Description:
Analysis of how and why the United States became involved in an all-out war in Southeast Asia. Based on transcripts and personal accounts of crucial meetings, confrontations and decisions, it re-creates what happened and why. The book focuses on: President Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, General […]
Book Description:
Overview of the history and an account of Henry Kissinger’s negotiations with world leaders. The author describes how the art of diplomacy has created the world in which we live, and how America’s approach to foreign affairs has always differed vastly from that of other […]
Title:
HOW WARS END: WHY WE ALWAYS FIGHT THE LAST BATTLE: A HISTORY OF AMERICAN INTERVENTION FROM WORLD WAR I TO AFGHANISTAN
Author:
Book Description:
This book recreates the choices that presidents and their advisers have confronted during the final stages of each major conflict from WWI through Iraq. The author “puts readers in the room” with U.S. officials as they make decisions that affect millions of lives and shape […]
Book Description:
Systematic account of force employment’s role and how this account holds up under rigorous, multi-method testing. The results challenge a wide variety of standard views, from current expectations for a revolution in military affairs, to mainstream scholarship in international relations, and orthodox interpretations of modern […]
Book Description:
The book is a major contribution to the general theory of strategy; it makes sense of the strategic history of the twentieth century, and provides understanding of what that strategic history implies for the century to come.
[…]
Book Description:
This book offers compelling proof that, as Clemenceau put it, “War is too important to leave to the generals.” By examining the shared leadership traits of four politicians (Abraham Lincoln, Georges Clemenceau, Winston Churchill, and David Ben-Gurion) who triumphed in extraordinarily varied military campaigns, the […]
Book Description:
This book explains the complexities of a constitutional government—its political structure and principles based on the inherent rights of man. Scholars have long regarded this work as a milestone in political science and a classic of American political theory. It is commonly referred to the […]
Book Description:
This book brings to life the people and events that led up to WWI. The author clearly articulates just how the war started, why, and why it could have been stopped, but wasn’t.
[…]
Title:
THE LANDMARK THUCYDIDES: A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR
Author:
Book Description:
Comprehensive guide to the Peloponnesian War. It includes several maps, brief informative appendices by classical scholars, explanatory marginal notes on each page, an index of unprecedented subtlety, and numerous other useful features.
[…]
Book Description:
A look at the historian’s craft as well as a strong argument for why a historical consciousness should matter to us today. For example: What is history and why should we study it? Is there such a thing as historical truth? Is history a science? […]
Book Description:
From inflation to the Federal Reserve, taxes to the budget deficit, the author walks us through how the economy really works and its role in our everyday life. Contains plain-English explanations of important economic terms, concepts, events, historical figures and major players.
[…]
Title:
The Revenge of Geography : What the map tells us about coming conflicts and the battle against fate
Author:
Book Description:
This book offers a new prism through which to view global upheavals and to understand what may lie ahead for continents and countries around the world. The author builds on the insights, discoveries, and theories of great geographers and geopolitical thinkers of the past to […]
