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43 Books About War Every Man Should Read
Art of Manliness ^ | 12-2-13 | Ryan Holiday.

Posted on 01/10/2014 5:48:26 PM PST by dynachrome

War is unquestionably mankind at his worst. Yet, paradoxically, it is in war that men — individual men — often show the very best of themselves. War is often the result of greed, stupidity, or depravity. But in it, men are often brave, loyal, and selfless.

I am not a soldier. I have no plans to become one. But I’ve studied war for a long time. I am not alone in this.

The greats have been writing and reading about war — its causes, its effects, its heroes, its victims — since the beginning of written text. Some of our most powerful literature is either overtly about war or profoundly influenced by it. Homer’s epic poems are about war — first, ten years of battle against Troy and then ten years of battle against nature and the gods. Thucydides, our first great historian, wrote about the Peloponnesian War — the great war between Sparta and Athens. Rome was built by war and literature, and the world has been influenced by that ever since. The American Empire is no different — our men came home and wrote about the Civil War, about the Spanish-American War, about WWI, about WWII. A new generation has come home and has written (and is still writing) powerful books about the counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The study of war is the study of life, because war is life in the rawest sense. It is death, fear, power, love, adrenaline, sacrifice, glory, and the will to survive.

(Excerpt) Read more at artofmanliness.com ...


TOPICS: Books/Literature; Chit/Chat; Reference
KEYWORDS: bookclub; bookreview; books; literature; war
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To: dynachrome

121 posted on 01/10/2014 10:59:52 PM PST by dfwgator
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To: dynachrome

Herman Wouk’s, The Winds of War and War and Remembrance.

War and Remembrance was very explicit in its depiction of the Holocaust, and the made-for-TV miniseries was faithful to the book in its’ depiction.


122 posted on 01/10/2014 11:04:58 PM PST by dfwgator
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To: bakeneko
To understand 20th Century warfare you must study the Battle of Stalingrad, the absolute deathstruggle of the worst of totalitarianism. Read “Life and Fate” by Vassily Grossman.

Better yet, back in the early '60s our NCO Club had a personal description of this from a former sergeant of the Wehrmacht who was captured there, survived a march/transport of prisoners to Siberia, escaped, and got back to the lines using "skis" made of wooden barrel staves. He had pictures of the invasion of Poland, and of the battle of Stalingrad. His description was horrifying, but professional. He was a really nice guy and gave the very impressive demeanor of a soldier who has been through it all, and still tough.

123 posted on 01/10/2014 11:19:29 PM PST by imardmd1 (Fiat Lux)
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To: dynachrome
A book that I came to realize was probably the definitive text regarding the Vietnam experience:

Street Without Joy: The French Debacle In Indochina by Bernard B. Fall

Actually it speaks volumes on all so named "low intensity" warfare that has come to be known as "guerrilla warfare."
124 posted on 01/11/2014 1:12:12 AM PST by Tainan (Cogito, ergo conservatus sum -- "The Taliban is inside the building")
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To: henkster; Monterrosa-24; Homer_J_Simpson
I've made a decade long sturdy of that book, STILLWELL AND THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE IN CHINA, as well as most of the players involved in it.
I can say with quite a bit of certainty that it is a truthful account of CKS, his Generals and their actions during the time frame presented. CKS, along with his staff and wife, , Soong May-ling aka Madame "Cash My Check" got a lot more out of their war effort than they put into it.
As to Tuchman being a "communist"...balderdash. She was not a CKS sympathizer merely due to her in-depth study of the person. I have uncovered no real evidence of her "embracing Mao" or his theories. More poppy-cock invented by the CKS fan club.
Also, she makes no "intimation" that the U.S. "dumped Chiang during the war." Her book is about Gen. Stillwell;it follows him and his journey during the time frame.
One would do well to follow the actions of CKS and his travels to ShangHai and learn who he made alliances with prior to his departure to Taiwan.

IMO, CKS was an opportunist riding on the $$s of the world in an attempt to establish his own fuedal kingdom in China. He was unable to do so and did as so many previous failed Chinese warlords did - he fled to Taiwan and attempted to build for a return to "The Middle Kingdom."

He failed.
125 posted on 01/11/2014 2:02:16 AM PST by Tainan (Cogito, ergo conservatus sum -- "The Taliban is inside the building")
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To: dynachrome

Excellent list. I would add “Brave Men” by Ernie Pyle, Lee’s Lieutenants” by Douglas Freeman, “Company H” by Sam Watkins, Livy’s account of the 2nd Punic War, “Defeat into Victory by William Slim, “The Supreme Commander” by Stephen Ambrose and “The Last Valley” by Martin Windrow.


126 posted on 01/11/2014 5:14:24 AM PST by X Fretensis
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To: imardmd1
" the War of Northern Aggression"

I remember reading where a university fraternity started that rumor or idea. IMHO it was the South attacking Ft. Sumpter and prior to that the attempted shelling of a supply ship a few months before. Then of course Lee invaded at Bull Run/Manassas.

I am no CW historian and I've gone into this argument before so I really don't want to get into it anymore but thanks for your post about those books.

127 posted on 01/11/2014 5:25:41 AM PST by SkyDancer ("How Can People Ask Forgiveness If They Won't Forgive Others?")
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To: Monterrosa-24

My supposed favorite Chiang story goes something like this:

When the General was asked what he thought about the French Enlightenment he said, “It is too soon to tell.”


128 posted on 01/11/2014 6:16:47 AM PST by KC Burke (Officially since Memorial Day they are the Gimmie-crat Party.ha)
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To: dynachrome

I would add:
Once There Was A War-John Steinbeck and
Brave Men-Ernie Pyle
Both are correspondent observations of servicemen during WWII.


129 posted on 01/11/2014 6:28:59 AM PST by Nuocmam
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To: Monterrosa-24

Mk III Panzers?


130 posted on 01/11/2014 6:40:04 AM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: X Fretensis
“Company H” by Sam Watkins

Company Aytch! I loved that book!

131 posted on 01/11/2014 6:58:55 AM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: dynachrome
Caesar, The Gallic War
Livy, The War with Hannibal (Books 21-30)
Herodotus, The Persian War
Sallust, The Jugurthine War
Josephus, The Jewish War
Tacitus, The Histories
132 posted on 01/11/2014 7:15:26 AM PST by Verginius Rufus
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To: yarddog
The point I was attempting to make was that the US Army stopped them - the entire US Army.

Stopped them dead in their tracks and pretty much destroyed the German army on the western front.

Oh yeah, there were some engineers who did their duty and blew bridges, and the Germans had a problem with gas too.

And yes, we lost more men in the Bulge than in the Pacific.

133 posted on 01/11/2014 7:27:13 AM PST by OKSooner ("Like, cosmic, man.")
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To: publius911
Prices for copies at ABE are back to be starting at $16. About two years ago the same book was trending to $30 and over. I paid $18, I think, for a new copy from a remainderer in 2006. I still would recommend buying a hardback copy for ones personal library. No other volume has the amount of information on the persistent efforts of Muslims to militarily conquer Europe.
134 posted on 01/11/2014 9:07:56 AM PST by robowombat
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To: SkyDancer
‘Then of course Lee invaded at Bull Run/Manassas.’

Say what? P G t Beauregard was in tactical command at First Manassas. Lee was, I believe off on a bootless mission in western Virginia. ‘Invaded’, um, federal forces were operating in Virginia with the goal of defeating the CSA force covering Richmond. A federal success at Manassas would have been followed up with a drive through Fredericksburg toward the rebel capital. Somehow defending against an invading army does not become ‘invading’.

135 posted on 01/11/2014 9:13:56 AM PST by robowombat
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To: dynachrome
A few of my favorites:

Fighting for the Confederacy, Edward Porter Alexander: Alexander was the premier artillery commander for the Army of Northern Virginia who just happened to have fought in every major battle in the eastern theater of war. This is my favorite Civil war history of all and I've read hundreds. Not only do you get great coverage, and insights, into all the major battles but Alexander give a great account into the everyday life of a confederate soldier. If you are a civil war buff this is a must read.

Campaigning with Grant, Horace Porter - this is basically the Union version of Alexander's book. Porter was a staff officer for U.S. Grant from Vicksburg through the end of the war. His memoirs give the best account of Grant's Overland campaign ever written and paints an amazing portrait of Grant, one of most fascinating characters in American history. This is one book I never wanted to end, it is just incredible. Another must read.

The 13th Valley, John Del Veccio: One of my favorite books of war fiction ever. The Vietnam war produced perhaps the greatest volume of war fiction of any American war and this was the best of the bunch. A riveting tale which is just a joy to read and impossible to put down.

The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer: Whatever you may thing of Mailer personally, this was THE WWII novel with incredibly powerful characterizations. Another must read.

For those who like war books you cannot go wrong with any of these books.

136 posted on 01/11/2014 9:56:03 AM PST by circlecity
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To: Tainan; Monterrosa-24; Homer_J_Simpson

Tainan, you and I have had this conversation before and I still disagree with you, and I also think you don’t know my opinions regarding Chaing Kai Shek.

First, you might be surprised but I completely agree with you about Chaing. He was milking, or rather extorting, money out of Uncle Sam without ever really intending to fight Japan. Chaing’s strategy was to have the United States defeat the Japanese for him. He was simply playing the “give me money or I might collapse” card for all it was worth. Support for CKS was simply wasted money and resources in my opinion. But Chaing was only practicing what I consider to be traditional Chinese attitudes in terms of diplomacy and dealing with foreign devils. He still believed in the inherent superiority of the Middle Kingdom, and it was for us smelly barbarian rubes to do his dirty work for him. Tuchman even remarked about it in her recounting of the ancient Chinese proverb “We can always fool the foreigner.”

And that’s where you and will differ on Tuchman. And you know the passage in “Stillwell and the American Experience in China” we are talking about which is found on page 622 of my edition. Tuchman states that the Communist Chinese position in international affairs was not fixed in 1944, and that by not seeking cooperation with them, we lost out on opportunities. She did not speculate on how it would have turned out, only that it could not have been worse than what actually happened.

I have a number of issues with this statement as I consider it highly illogical, and should have been patently illogical to Tuchman. Either the Chinese Communists were Chinese first and Communists second, or they were Communists first and Chinese second. Let’s take the first possibility. If they did not represent hard-core Marxist-Leninists, then they were going to pursue traditional Chinese policies and patterns in dealing with foreign powers. Such as, “we can always fool the foreigner.” In other words, they would have been no less likely to extort money out of manipulating the United States than Chaing Kai Shek’s Kuomintang.

On the other hand, if they were Communists first and Chinese second, it would have been a major break with traditional Chinese policies. But it would have been a break not at all in favor of the United States. No matter what course the United States took, they Chinese Communists were going to be inimical to our interests.

If you look at the domestic policies of Mao’s Communists, it’s pretty clear they were communists first and Chinese second. His xenophobic closure of China to the west, and the murder of millions of his own people as he “fundamentally transformed” China, makes it pretty clear that there was no way cooperation with Mao was going to get us anywhere different than it got us anyway. Look at Soviet Russia at the same time. Unquestionably communist first and Russian second. We cooperated extensively with them during this time. Look where it got us.

So either Tuchman completely disregarded all she knew about China in writing that paragraph, or she completely disregarded the historical record and context of the United States in dealing with communist nations and what those political systems were all about. Either way she made a completely illogical statement, or she was a closet communist supporter. I’ve chosen to believe that such an intelligent writer of history could not have made such an error of logic.

On that, I suppose we will always disagree.


137 posted on 01/11/2014 2:25:00 PM PST by henkster (Communists never negotiate.)
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To: henkster
Henkster - Thank you for the considered reply.
Yes, we are in agreement on the CKS topic in many areas.
I will offer this re:Tuchmans comments. (my copy appears to be a first prinintg, copyright 1970, 1971, its index ends at pg 621)
Her comment was , IMO, from a historical perspective. She was writing about what might have been benficial at that point in time - had it been implemented. Such alliances are not unheard of in the realm of politics. Doesn't mean they always work out - they many times have completely unintended consequences. Speaking purely from historical position of speculation -> Making an uneasy ally, or seeking some type of "co-operation" with the CCP at that point in time may well have been a "good" decision for policy-makers to have followed.

I would draw a similar frame of comparison to the early years of Ho Chi Minh, perhaps during his late Paris years or in his early attempts to seek some type of 'co-operation' with the U.S.A.

Our, the U.S.A.s, rebuttal of these "soft alignments" came back to bite us severely. It caused the loss of much life, on both sides later in the game.

It is my opinion that much of this loss, not all, could have been avoided if there were some-type of economic policy of mutual co-operation in effect. Of course, the wrench in the works is that this policy would have had to be guided by a firm policy group with the interests of the U.S.A. first and foremost in their mandate - that appears to have been and currently unworkable.

So, yes, we are in much agreement with what has transpired re:CKS and his legacy, it seems our differences are in the area of speculation in political courses that "may/might have been."

Always a fertile field for digging about in.

I will offer this prescient quote from the book jacket of my copy.
"You will hear a lot of talk about how this or that generation messed things up and got us into war, What nonsense. All living generations are responsible for what we do and all dead ones as well."...General Stillwell in an address to the graduating class at West Point in 1945.
138 posted on 01/12/2014 5:31:31 PM PST by Tainan (Cogito, ergo conservatus sum -- "The Taliban is inside the building")
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To: Tainan

I have to admit when I first read “Stillwell and the American Experience in China,” I was intrigued by Tuchman’s statement that we lost opportunities by not pursuing closer relations with the Chinese Communists in 1944. But I was also intrigued by the post-war memoirs of German generals in how they believed they could have defeated the USSR and won the war. After considering the German generals’ memoirs, I created what some of my history friends call “henkster’s Law” regarding alternate histories. Put in context of the German war effort, “henkster’s law” states that an alternate history is not valid if it involves Hitler not being Hitler and the Germans not being the Germans.

Applying “henkster’s law” to Tuchman, it would read that the lost opportunities were not really opportunities at all if they involve Mao not being Mao and the Chinese not being the Chinese. There is no question that Mao was on a path to “fundamentally transform” China into a Marxist-Leninist state. In order to do so, he had to do certain things, and two of them stand high on the list. One was killing a lot of his own citizens. This seems to be a prerequisite in fundamentally transforming a society into a communist state. The other was that all, and I mean ALL western influence had to be eradicated.

I know you are a keen student of Chinese history, and are undoubtedly far better versed in it than I. However, there are a few things I do know about China. When you look at China in the mid-1940s, their experience in dealing with Americans and Europeans (they would probably lump us together for the most part, just as we lump “Chinese” together) was not a good experience. Mostly from a business aspect. The Europeans had carved out their “spheres of influence” and pushed the Chinese around. For a proud people with a sense of cultural superiority, this did not sit well. So for Mao to be Mao, and to fundamentally change China, the westerners had to go, and be gone for at least a generation. For us to propose economic relations with China was a non-starter, as Mao would be suspicious of a “spheres of influence” agenda.

So that’s the key reason I don’t think it would have made any difference. Had we made overtures to Mao, he would have tried to milk the Americans of everything he could while it was expedient to do so. He would probably have used anything to his advantage against CKS. He would still have waged a civil war against CKS as soon as the Japanese were gone. He would have willingly accepted assistance from the USSR. He would have expelled the Americans as soon as possible. And the China we knew from 1945-2014 would be the same.

Ironically, that’s kind of the impression I got from reading the last paragraph of “Stilwell and the American Experience in China.”


139 posted on 01/13/2014 7:38:07 AM PST by henkster (Communists never negotiate.)
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To: henkster
Once again, I agree with just about all that you write...but...I will still hold to the line that Tuchman was writing from a historical perspective of Stillwell, Mao, the U.S.A. and China in the time frame represented in the book.
Perhaps, given what I consider to be your correct observations about Mao, my comparison to Ho Chi Minh is not quite accurate. I will easily concede that. I do think that, while Bach Ho was more a Nationalist than a "Communist" he could have been drawn to the Western side and avoided a lot of 'kerfuffle' along the way. I also hold this opinion re:Fidel Castro; another avoidable political f*ck-up made by inept State Department employees. (re:HO - I also place heavy blame on the French actions in SE Asia / Vietnam)
Given the Chinese penchant for thinking that their culture is the pinnacle and Maos' heavy belief in "Communism and the Cult of Mao" being the ultimate expression of that "5,000 years of Chinese culture" it is easy to regard his ambivalence to any Western (USA) efforts to sway his course. Would he have played the U.S.A. for his own ends - of course. Same as CKS and the Soong sisters. Its the Chinese Way.

As we agree on so many major points, I think our prime diversion is in characterizing Tuchman as embracing the communist mantra. I just don't see it in this volume, nor in any other of her work.
Good points all. Good discussion.
140 posted on 01/13/2014 6:14:41 PM PST by Tainan (Cogito, ergo conservatus sum -- "The Taliban is inside the building")
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