100 Books Like Confederate Tide Rising

I think this is a particularly strong book because it provides details about the Confederate decision-making process that I have not read elsewhere.

The interpretation of the historical sources is also outstanding. Glatthaar clarifies the thinking of Confederate leaders about important issues, such as the raising of armies and their provisioning.

The book helped shape my understanding of the challenges Davis and Lee faced and the solutions they undertook to solve them.

Kegel ties together threads in the early history of the war that have an impact on its later course.

These include the adoption of an offensive strategy that would push the war out of Virginia and into Pennsylvania. Kegel elevates the importance of Stonewall Jackson as a strategic thinker in particular and elucidates his influence on Robert E. Lee.

In my own studies, I have found that Jackson did indeed make suggestions Lee later followed, particularly when it came to offensive operations, but Kegel leaves out a key figure in his work - Jefferson Davis.

Like Jackson, Davis shared a preference for offensive action, but Davis did not adopt this opinion from Jackson. Similarly, Davis and Lee had discussed many times taking the fight to the enemy before Jackson became involved at a strategic level.

Lee then carried out Davis’s orders in September 1862 when he led his army across… show more.

This is another important book on the development of Confederate strategy.

Like Harsh, I think Woodworth places too much emphasis on Lee, but he at least includes Davis as a protagonist. To that end, Woodworth’s claim that Davis was convinced the South should fight a defensive war is flat out wrong. He is keen enough to point out how P.G.T. Beauregard, Gustavus Smith, Stonewall Jackson, and even Joe Johnston all clamored for an offensive that would dampen Northern will to win the war.

He simply misses the fact, however, that Davis agreed with them. Davis, however, was the only man of the group who had a national perspective and knew what could be accomplished given the men and materiel limitations of his armies.  

This is the most detailed history of the Battle of Antietam available and is filled with insight. 

The stories Hartwig unearthed are compelling and fascinating. Of all the books on Antietam, this one makes you feel closest to the action. It is a moving, often chilling, read.

Hartwig also offers new thoughts on the effectiveness of George McClellan as a general and even some criticism that will be new to many readers.

The book stumbles when it comes to developing a wider perspective, including the lack of an explanation of why Robert E. Lee decided to fight at Antietam. This weakens the book’s impact a bit as the reader continues to come away bewildered about why the general would have taken such a dangerous risk with his army.

Kaplan does a marvelous job describing, as the subtitle indicates, “the secret history of nuclear war.” It is in a sense a sequel to Kaplan’s earlier The Wizards of Armageddon, which examined theorists of nuclear annihilation. In The Bomb, Kaplan takes us on a deep dive into the bowels of actual doomsday planning; an unforgettable and darkly educational trip!

I consider Millett the finest historian of the Korean War, and this, Volume Two of his trilogy, makes that case abundantly clear.

The sheer scope of his research, the clarity of his writing, his grasp of the overarching strategy, and his understanding of Korean history run through this book.

Quite a lot about what the defining forces in today’s world of work became clear to our military leaders many decades ago. Warfare was once centralized, linear, and choreographed. Modern war is fragmented, dynamic, and unpredictable. The term VUCA itself came from the military.

Scales is one of our greatest military thinkers leading the way on how we should be approaching soldier readiness in this new reality. We need to think much more about psychological agility and resilience so that the front lines are enabled to respond to an unforeseeable challenge. He’s ahead of the corporate curve in this thinking, but just by a hair. 

In this book, John Tirman offers an unapologetic view of the true human cost of America’s wars of choice throughout the world, particularly those in the twenty-first century in the greater Middle East.

Reading Tirman, I came to understand the true face of American war as seen through the eyes of the victims of American war policy, namely civilians who never held a weapon nor lifted a finger in anger against the United States. Tirman informs that war kills, and to a staggering extent, it kills innocent civilians.

As a citizen of the American Empire in the twenty-first century, it was critical for me to know what the United States does in my name and who around the world is adversely affected by the nation's violent policies. I found Tirman to be an invaluable voice in my pursuit of that vital information. 

A wonderful book! James Church is former intelligence officer, and in Bamboo and Blood, he weaves a tale of murder and missile deals, set in the context of North Korea's famine. 

With its evocation of cold, snow, and death, Inspector O encounters a giggling Israeli agent; a solitary, lonely North Korean general; a former colleague from a failed mission; a bevy of North Korean diplomats; and a Swiss counterintelligence officer. The tale ends with Inspector O's caveat to the Israeli agent: "Belief is easy. It's doubting that causes difficulties." 

Inspector O survives the famine, and another winter, as does North Korea. This novel by Church, like his debut spy thriller/mystery, A Corpse in the Koryo: An Inspector O Novel, is one to be savored.

The insurgents of the title are a group of military officers, many of whom had taught at West Point’s Department of Social Sciences, who attempted to help the Army and the nation come to terms with the war in Iraq. Ironically, most had been opposed to the invasion of Iraq in 2003; nonetheless, they worked with great urgency to understand the conflict and produce better policies to minimize the suffering and harm to U.S. interests it caused. The team, led by Army General David Petraeus and Marine General James Mattis, created the U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual that Petraeus implemented when he took command of the Iraq war effort in 2007, changing the course of the war and America’s understanding of the future of conflict.