Ray Odierno’s Reading List

General Ray Odierno, the 38th Army Chief of Staff, prepared the following professional reading list (pdf here) with this introduction:

This reading list is an important element in the professional development of all leaders in the Army. We can never spend too much time reading and thinking about the Army profession and its interaction with the world at large. These readings will deepen our understanding of the history of armies, the critical role of leadership in combat, and the strategic environment of today and the future. There is simply no better way to prepare for the future than a disciplined, focused commitment to a personal course of reading, study, thought, and reflection. I challenge each of you to tackle these books and improve your power of critical thinking and understanding of the profession of arms.

The Army Profession

• 19 Stars: A Study in Military Character and Leadership (Edgar F. Puryear Jr., 2003)
• Band of Brothers (Stephen E. Ambrose, 2001)
• Between War and Peace (Matthew Moten, ed., 2011)
• Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War (Robert Coram, 2004)
• Command Culture (Jorg Muth, 2011)
• United States Constitution
• Dereliction of Duty (H. R. McMaster, 1998)
• Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life (Carlo D’este, 2002)
• The Face of Battle (John Keegan, 1983)
• The Forgotten Hero of My Lai (Trent Angers, 1999)
• Grey Eminence (Edward Cox, 2011)
• Grunts: Inside the American Infantry Combat Experience (John C. McManus, 2010)
• Lincoln and His Generals (T. Harry William, 2011)
• A Message to Garcia (Elbert Hubbard, 2009)
• Once an Eagle (Anton Myrer, 2001)
• Partners in Command: George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower in War and Peace (Mark Perry, 2007)
• Personal Memoirs: Ulysses S. Grant (Ulysses S. Grant, 1999)
• The Profession of Arms (John Winthrop Hackett, 1983)
• Supreme Command (Eliot A. Cohen, 2002)
• The Unforgiving Minute (Craig M. Mullaney, 2009)

The Force of Decisive Action

• 1776 (David McCullough, 2006)
• The AEF Way of War (Mark E. Grotelueschen, 2007)
• American Military History, vol. 2, The United States Army in a Global Era, 1917-2008 (Richard W. Stewart, ed., 2010)
• An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943 (Rick Atkinson, 2002)
• Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (James M. McPherson, 1988)
• The Battle of Hurtgen Forest (Charles Whiting, 2007)
• A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (Neil Sheehan, 1988)
• Cambridge Illustrated History of Warfare (Geoffrey Parker, ed., 2000)
• East of Chosin: Entrapment and Breakout in Korea, 1950 (Roy E. Appleman, 1987)
• Intelligence in War (John Keegan, 2003)
• The Killer Angels (Michael Shaara, 2004)
• On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society (Dave Grossman, 2009)
• The Landmark Thucydides (Robert B. Strassler, ed., 1996)
• A Stillness at Appomattox (Bruce Catton, 1990)
• Summons of the Trumpet: U.S.-Vietnam in Perspective (David R. Palmer, 1995)
• Suppling War (Martin Van Creveld, 1977)
• This Kind of War (T. R. Fehrenbach, 2001)
• Tip of the Spear: U.S. Army Small-Unit Action in Iraq, 2004-2007 (Jon T. Hoffman, ed., 2009)
• Transformation Under Fire (Douglas A. Macgregor, 2003)
• The U.S. Military Intervention in Panama (Lawrence A. Yates, 2008)
• We Were Soldiers Once… and Young (Harold G. Moore, 2002)

Broadening Leaders

• The Age of the Unthinkable (Joshua Cooper Ramo, 2010)
• Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (Chalmers Johnson, 2004)
• Cables from Kabul (Sherard Cowper-Coles, 2011)
• A Choice of Enemies: America Confronts the Middle East (Lawrence Freedman, 2008)
• Credibility: How Leaders Gain and Lose It, Why People Demand It (James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner, 2011)
• The Devil You Don’t Know: Going Back to Iraq (Zuhair al-Jezairy, 2010)
• Discourses on Livy (Niccolo Machiavelli, 1996)
• The Dynamics of Military Revolution, 1300-2050 (MacGregor Knox and Williamson Murray, eds., 2001)
• Flawed by Design: The Evolution of the CIA, JCS, and NSC (Amy B. Zegart, 1999)
• For Whom the Bell Tolls (Ernest Hemingway, 1995)
• How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything (Dov Seidman, 2007)
• The Instigators: How a Small Band of Digital Activists Risked Their Lives and Helped Bring Down the Government of Egypt (David Wolman, 2011)
• Leading Change (John P. Kotter, 1996)
• Makers of Modern Strategy (Peter Paret, ed., 1986)
• The Masks of War: American Military Styles in Strategy and Analysis (Carl H. Builder, 1989)
• The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom (Evgeny Morozov, 2011)
• Rethinking the Principles of War (Anthony D. McIvor, 2005)
• The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations (Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom, 2006)
• Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard (Chip and Dan Heath, 2010)
• Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision Makers (Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May, 1986)
• Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century (P. W. Singer, 2009)

The Strategic Environment

• The Ascent of Money (Niall Ferguson, 2008)
• Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World (Michael Lewis, 2011)
• On China (Henry Kissinger, 2011)
• The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (Samuel P. Huntington, 1996)
• Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia (Ahmed Rashid, 2008)
• Forgotten Continent: The Battle for Latin America’s Soul (Michael Reid, 2007)
• The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire (Edward N. Luttwak, 2009)
• A History of Modern Iran (Ervand Abrahamian, 2008)
• Kevlar Legions: The Transformation of the U.S. Army, 1989-2005 (John Sloan Brown, 2011)
• Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror (Mary Habeck, 2007)
• The Longest War: The Iran-Iraq Military Conflict (Dilip Hiro, 1989)
• Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power (Robert D. Kaplan, 2010)
• The Most Noble Adventure: The Marshall Plan and How America Helped Rebuild Europe (Greg Behrman, 2008)
• My Life with the Taliban (Abdul Salam Zaeef, 2010)
• Prodigal Soldiers: How the Generation of Officers Born of Vietnam Revolutionized the American Style of War (James Kitfield, 1997)
• The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World (Daniel Yergin, 2011)
• That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back (Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum, 2011)
• The Utility of Force (Rupert Smith, 2008)
• The World Is Flat (Thomas L. Friedman, 2005)
• A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace, 1812-1822 (Henry Kissinger, 1979)