Andrew Exum’s Alternative U.S. Army Reading List

This list originally appeared on Andrew Exum’s Abu Muqawama blog in August 2011 as a response to Gen. Martin Dempsey’s professional reading list for the U.S. Army. Exum has since retired his blog, so the list is recreated here. Titles marked with an asterisk are ones that Exum agrees with Gen. Dempsey on.

History and Heritage

• The War for America, 1775-1783
• Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History
• Foote’s The Civil War
• The Killer Angels: A Novel of the Civil War*
• The First World War
• With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa
• This Kind of War*
• Street Without Joy: The French Debacle In Indochina
• Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age
• Surprise, Security, and the American Experience

Civilian-Military Relations

• The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations
• Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime
• The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War

Critical Analysis and the Global Context

• On War* (read alongside Michael Howard’s Clausewitz: A Very Short Introduction)
• Soldier’s Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point*
• The Culture of National Security
• Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do And Why They Do It
• Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy
• The Tragedy of Great Power Politics
• Arms and Influence