Can any of yall give me a list of your favorite books to read.  Everything from informational, history, and non fiction...im not really interested in fiction.  Im gonna have a lot of time on my hands during winter break, so Im looking for some good reading material.  Gotta improve the mind.  Thanks yall

Shelby Foote's - The Civil War, A Narrative (a trilogy)
James McPhersons - Battle Cry of Freedom
Donald R Morris - The Washing of the Spears (Rise and fall of the Zulu Nation)
Robert Leckie - Strong Men Armed (Narrative of the Marines in WWII)
Rick Atkinson - An Army at Dawn (War in North Africa, 1942-1943)
Correlli Barnett - Engage the Enemy More Closely (The Royal Navy in WWII)
Richard B. Frank - Guadalcanal
Meirion and Susie Harries - Soldiers of the Sun (Rise and Fall of the Imperial Japanese Army)
William T Y'Blood - The Little Giants (US Escort Carriers Against Japan)
Stephen E Ambrose - Pegasus Bridge (British Airborne on June 6th, '44)

The Art of War - Sun Tzu
Pacific War Diary - James Fahey
Battle Cry of Freedom - James McPherson
Blind Man's Bluff - Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew
Steel My Soldiers Hearts - David Hackworth
We Were Soldiers Once and Young - Hal Moore and Joe Galloway

Anything by John C. McManus, although I'm a bit biased, he was my favorite history professor.

A Distant Mirror--Barbara Tuchmann, 14th Century European history and the Black Death
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers--Paul M. Kennedy, why nations prosper and fail
The Clash of Civilizations--Samuel Huntington, a new paradigm for international relations in the 21st Century


Steve

5 years to freedom,,by  Maj Rowe
www.bibl.u-szeged.hu/bibl/mil/vietnam/konyv/r/rowe_i.html

With a price on his head still in 89,he was ASSANINATED  in the Phillipines
www.pownetwork.org/bios/r/r077.htm

A GREAT soldier and very infomitive,awesome S.E.R.E  lectures

De Oppresso Liber

SEMPER FIDELIS

If you want something super raunchy, pick up Procopius' Secret History.

It details the reign of Justinian, and Thodosia. Prostitution, murder, demons, that stuff is unreal.


ETA: you can get it here for free! book mark it and read it. You won't be dissapointed.

www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/procop-anec.html

Quoted: 5 years to freedom,,by  Maj Rowe www.bibl.u-szeged.hu/bibl/mil/vietnam/konyv/r/rowe_i.html With a price on his head still in 89,he was ASSANINATED  in the Phillipines www.pownetwork.org/bios/r/r077.htm A GREAT soldier and very infomitive,awesome S.E.R.E  lectures De Oppresso Liber SEMPER FIDELIS

And from what I understand, his assassin was just released from prison.

- The Face of Battle, John Keagan
- The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power, Max Boot
- Animal Farm, George Orwell
- 1984, George Orwell

i appreciate all of yalls suggestions...im gonna pick up as many as my budget allows...let me know if yall can think of any more, or read another good one after that...the only book i have read on these lists is the art of war...great book...thanks again for yalls help

Almost anything by John McPhee ; Waiting For A Ship, Oranges, Coming into the Country, ANY of his Collections ... Giving Good Weight
For fiction (despite what you said, I'll bet you'd enjoy...)
The Pepperdags by Bing West  or Descent by Jeff Hall    
A good library system will be able to get you many of the McPhee books
Stay safe

I have found these James Bourke books to be great:
The Day The Universe Changed
The Axe Makers Gift

They are about how inventions and knowledge changed the world. You may have heard of him. He is the host of the show Connections. Great show about the same topic as his books.

The Memoirs of U. S. Grant - very lucid.  You'd never expect a gruff fellow like Grant to have a flowing pen.
Fighting for the Confederacy.  E. Porter Alexander wrote one of the best narratives of the war.
Destruction and Reconstruction.  Dick Taylor another excellent writer.
How Pvt. George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion.  The "sad sack" story of the Civil War that will keep you in tears.  Practicing humility throughout, Pvt. Peck manages to survive the war and get himself elected as governor of Michigan.
Another River, Another Town, John P. Irwin.  The autobiography of a teenage tank gunner who goes into Germany in a Sherman and lives because he upgraded to a Pershing.  This is a must read for tank fans.  Irwin almost wrote the equivalent of Peck's book - especially about the part where his tank captured 80 Germans and how his C.O. got pissed off because of it.
Grant, A Victor, Not a Butcher by Edward Bonekemper.  Destroys the Southern Myth that Grant bludgeoned Lee's Army into submission.  Percentage wise, Lee lost more men in his offensive actions than Grant.
Wilderness War on the Ohio - Alan FitzPatrick draws from the Canadian National Archives to get the British and Indian's perspective of the fights on the frontier from the French & Indian War to the Revolution.  Spectacular!
Condemned to Live.  Forgot the name, but it's written by a Austrian who was drafted into the army and became an artilleryman in a Panzer division.  Well worth the time to read.
The Rommel Papers.  Edited by B. H. Liddell Hart.  Classic piece to study the war in Northern Africa.

These are books Ive read over the year not in any order.
D-Days in the pacific/Mercenaries/Hitlers Samurai,The Waffen SS in action/Last Stand,famous battles against the odds/Armaggedon the battle for germany/An Army At Dawn/Secret Commandoes behind enemy lines with SOG/Ghost Soldiers/Doorway To Hell.I read and shoot alot what can I say.

Here are a few that read fast, at least I couldn't put them down.

Anything by Steven Ambrose.  Whatever you do make sure you read D-Day followed by Citizen Soldiers.

Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden.

Merry CHRISTmas break.

If you want a riveting first hand account of the American Civil War, might I suggest John Worsham's, "One of Jackson's Foot Cavalry."

.

THE FORGOTTEN SOLDIER auto bio of a German soldier  on the Russian front to his surrender in Berlin...by Guy Saeger

Threre is also a book that has the story of everyone who won the Congressional Medal of Honor.  It is a great look into what some of our warriors have done for our country.

Fiction, but very worth the read;
The Killer Angels - Michael Saara
Gettysburg - Newt Gingrich

Non Fiction;
About Face - Hackworth
Biggest Brother - about Major Richard Winters (Band of Brothers) - Larry Alexander
Antetam - story of the bloodiest day of the Civil War - John Priest

Just read[u] Special Men by Dennis Foley compared to[u] Jarhead which I read at the same time it is an excellent book. Jarhead is by and about a general fuckup in Desert Storm whereas Special Men is about an hororable soldier in Viet Nam.

Alvin

+1 on Grants book its an American classic

Alvin

Really good reading is the 6 volume set by Allen Eckert.  It deals with the period of about 1750 to 1830 or so.   Each book has two main characters and followes their lives during the course of the book.  There is dialogue added to the characters, but every convresation and event really happened.  There is documentation and copious footnotes in every volume.  

It covers the conflicts between the Indians and the Europeans with no bias and lets you make up your own mind about the events and the times.  It merely presents what happened.  Plenty of heores, cowards, villians, innocent victims and just plain normal people on all sides.  There was a time when giants walked this land.   You also get to learn about the fascinating lives of people not well known in the history of this country, but had a pivotal effect on out history.  

The books are:

The Forntiersman
The Wilderness War
The Wilderness Empire
The Conquerers
Gateway to Empire
Twilight of Empire

Anyone of these books would be a season long smash hit mini -series if Hollywood could produce it without all the political correctness it seems to have to add to every production.

I've read Eckhert's, "The Dark Bloody River" and enjoyed it.  A word of caution about him is that he does create dialogue as if those were the words verbatimly spoken.  Still, it's fun reading but if you want French & Indian War around the Ohio Valley, pick up "Wilderness War on the Ohio" by Alan FitzPatrick.  It's a monumental work of over 600 pages in length and drawn from the Canadian National Archives.  You'll get a lot of insights from the Canadians, British and through those who worked with the Indians, the Indians.

I'm reading Land of Savagery, Land of Promise: The European Image of the American Frontier in the Nineteenth Century, by Ray Allen Billington - W W Norton & Co Inc, January 1, 1981. It's about the Idea of the American Frontier, as it was represented to Europeans within books, letters, and advertisements during the 19th Century. I'm not very far into it yet, but I recommend it if you're interested in the evolution of the concept of the American Frontier, and of the role of the American Indian within it.

GL

Honestly if you are looking for a good book about general war throughout history you should go get "The History Of Warfare" By John Keegan. I had to read a section of it for International relations, and I ended up read the whole book. It covers the art of warfare, from Egypt all the way up to World War II. I throughly enjoyed it and would recommend it.

Undaunted Courage by Ambrose.  It is the history of the Lewis and Clark expedition.  Very interesting.

tag

I just finished 'No True Glory', about the seige/attack on Falluja.  Outstanding, right there with Bowmans 'BHD" if you ask me.

Its funny that Mossburg mentioned The History of Warfare, that is one of my class text books for European Military history.  Good book.  I also jsut finished a book for that class called the Gates of Fire, about the Battle of Thermopolae between the Spartans and Persians, pretty decent book.  Also, when I was at the bookstore, picked up a few more: The Tipping Point and Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, Freakonomics, and a few business books as well.  Keep me posted if yall come across anymore good books to read.

2 great books on American involvement in the Pacific ww. James Bradley's Flyboys and Flags of our Fathers.

Herodotus:  The Persian Wars
Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War
Sun Tzu: The Art of War
Chandler: The Campaigns of Napoleon
George W. Peck: How Private George W. Peck Put Down the Rebellion
Robert Krick: The Smoothbore Volley That Doomed the Confederacy

Devil's Guard ~ George Robert Elford
Return to Inferno ~ George Robert Elford
Unconditional Warfare ~ George Robert Elford
We Were Soldiers Once and Young ~ Col. Hal Moore
Steel Inferno: SS Panzer Corps in Normandy ~ Michael Reynolds
Defeating Communist Insurgency ~ Sir Robert Thompson
SOLDAT ~ Siegfried Knappe
Black Edelweiss ~ Johann Voss
June 6, 1944: The Voices of D-Day ~ Gerald Astor
Blood Dimmed Tide: The Battle of the Bulge By the Men Who Fought It ~ Gerald Astor
Currahee!: A Screaming Eagle at Normandy ~ Donald R. Burgett
The Road to Arnhem: A Screaming Eagle in Holland ~ Donald R. Burgett
Seven Roads to Hell: A Screaming Eagle at Bastogne ~ Donald R. Burgett

This is just a short list.  I am a historian so all of these are primary sources, I don't like third hand accounts.    I would rather read the words of the guys who actually lived it than someone else's interpretation.