Like Homer said, you can certainly find some very good books in my own library that I have posted on my profile page. You will really find all types on this page. Some of them are written by left wing lunatic fringe types (ie. Tim Weiner, Bruce Cummings), but I would say that it is still important to have a few of these types of books if you are going to make a serious study on military historical events.
The key to any of the readings is that you understand that nothing written is completely factual. Everyone would love to be able to put together Rankian style true histories, but it is just impossible to do this. Primary source material is never error free, biases slip into the reporting and re-reporting of events. Secondary sources amplify this and in the end you find yourself in a position where your goal is to give the best representation of the events that you can, but realize that it is only a representation.
Take Tim Weiner’s book Legacy of Ashes. It is chock full of things the CIA did wrong from its inception to 9-11. A lot of the mistakes that Weiner examines in this book did in fact happen. However, this is Weiner’s representation of those events and so it becomes exaggerated. He if very careful to not mention any of the successes that occurred over that same time frame. The significance of some of the errors committed are overstated. To you and me this makes this book liberal trash. It is just a politically motivated bash the CIA writing. But as I said, there are still some real historical realities in it. What that means is that it does have value, as long as you don’t cling to it as gospel truth and understand the motivations of the author who wrote it.
Let me know what aspects of military events you are most interested in and I’ll come up with a short list of books for you. Are you more interested in Operational histories? The politics of warfare? Overall general military histories? Logistics, homefront, you get the idea.
Coug.
Engineers of Victory: The Problem Solvers Who Turned The Tide in the Second World War by Paul Kennedy (Jan 29, 2013)
From a review
This is a very good book, but not the book the title suggests. The title suggests that the book focusses on the engineering achievements that contributed to winning WWII, whereas in fact, the book is actually a history of the strategies that won the war. Whoever created the title deserves a dope-slap. “Engineering” has two meanings, (a) the most common meaning: the development of a device, like engineering a new machine gun; and (b) the less common meaning: a means to achieve an objective, like engineering a way to get Johnnie accepted into the college of his choice. Both meanings of the word contributed mightily to success in WWII, but the book only deals with the “scheme” meaning of the word (it mentions the tremendous contributions of new equipment developed during the war, but does not go into the engineering details thereof; rather, equipment developments are discussed as how they contributed to strategies). Therefore, use of the “engineering” in the title is extremely misleading.
I’m working with a lot of the “Facebook” generation, both in-person and online. I want to be able to provide them a resource for an appreciation of our recent military history, without the spin from academia, if possible. Working with them I have found both an ignorance of the subject (not surprising), but more importantly a willingness to learn. My focus is really on the latest conflicts, from 9-11, but covering Vietnam is also wanted.
And thanks to all who have contributed to this thread.