43 Books About War Every Man Should Read

Art of Manliness ^ | 12-2-13 | Ryan Holiday.

[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.

[henkster]

I’m still not sure where I am on Ho. Once again, given what was going on in the world, our relations with France, and the fact that Asians equated white Americans with white Europeans, I doubt things would have been different with Ho. He was the local dictator wanna-be in a backwater imperial province in 1944. Our aim was to liberate France from Nazi Germany, and all our policy was driven by that. So we were aligned with the French. Even though FDR disfavored European colonialism, we were not going to distance ourselves from the French sufficiently to placate Ho.

As for Tuchman, I will at this point agree to disagree. I will at some point re-read the three books of hers that I own (Guns of August, A Distant Mirror, Stilwell) and reasses my opinions.

But it was a good discussion.

[FreedomPoster]

I distinctly remember an interview with Schwartzkopf in the command bunker before Desert Storm. They visited his little monk’s cell of a room, and Panzer Battles was on the table or the bed, I can’t remember which. But close at hand, obviously being (re)read.