100 Books Like The Confidante

I met John H. Dalton, a former Secretary of the Navy, at a fireside chat and book signing held at my current employer. I served under him while on Active Duty in the Marine Corps, so the opportunity to confirm how I viewed him during that time and match his character with the tales in his book was a once-in-a-lifetime joy.

I was struck by how every chapter in his life was handled with the utmost humility and grace. Whether a Navy circumstance, private industry adventure, or personal struggle, he looked for the lesson to be learned and the opportunity to be gained. Each chapter provided a guidepost I found to be of lifetime value. 

I taught about the Falklands War in my final position within the Department of Defense. I found this unheralded engagement to be as riveting and visually engaging as any publication I have read about this conflict. I found the tales of individual courage, along with the mistaken assumptions, lack of basic survival resources, and the sheer magnitude of their struggle for the cause they believed in, to shed an entirely new light on this forgotten time in the post-Vietnam, pre-Gulf War period.

I came to appreciate the Argentinian force's behavior despite the deprivations on the field and at home. Their resiliency was admirable. The emotional and physical scars on the sides were honestly and sensitively portrayed, many of which linger to this day.

It has been on my ‘must-read’ list for decades. The story of our premier Naval Officer of World War 2 is compelling, from the first page to the last. His humble beginnings, early career miscues, and the wisdom of his senior leaders to see the potential reminded me of my own early career in military service.

How and why, he was able to balance the temperaments of brilliant but aggressive officers (MacArthur, Halsey and his boss, King), while always focusing on what was essential for the US to win in the Pacific is a true tale in knowing your audience. I modeled my servant leadership style on his deference to elevating others before himself. He is a genuine figure in our history and an ethical guidepost for all.

I love a story in which the central character is approachable and authentic. Joshua Chamberlain had no family legacy of military service, but putting his academic background to use, in understanding the purpose of his unit, the mission, and the war, I found myself reliving every moment of his life, as if I was a member of his unit.

His humility and genuine appreciation for those serving with him was yet another example of how I sought to lead those I served. I found myself immersed in who he was and how he was able to put into context the struggles of those serving with him. I, too, try to ‘live the talk’ as he did during and after the Civil War.

This is an intimate account of the collaboration between the quartet who led America to victory in World War II: FDR, Secretary of War Henry Stimson, Army Chief of Staff George Marshall, and Commander-in-Chief of the US Fleet Admiral Ernest King. The four sometimes disagreed: the military men initially worried that FDR sought to shape war strategy for political purposes; the president overruled their preference for an Anglo-American invasion of Nazi-occupied France in 1943, something he considered premature. Far more often, the quartet set aside personal, political, and professional differences to pull the nation through its darkest days of the twentieth century. Superbly researched and written, this book offers illuminating commentary on how wars are won.

Robert Klara provides so much detail and insight that it’s like he was on Franklin Roosevelt’s funeral train, crouched down in the seat behind the new president, Harry S. Truman! 

I was super impressed by Klara’s research and ability to capture the conversations and historical nuances of one of the most important train rides of the twentieth century. 

This book provides a captivating look at America in a year when the outcome of World War II was still in doubt. 

I like how this book is organized—one chapter focused on each of the twelve months of 1942. During this pivotal time, Americans struggled to reshape the U.S. economy for war production and transform its relatively small military into a force capable of successfully fighting on two fronts. 

Compiled from personal diaries and letters, wartime arts and entertainment, court records, military correspondence, secret police reports and Nazi propaganda ministry assessments, an Oxford professor of modern European history has written this engrossing account of the German military and civilian experience during World War II. Initial enthusiasm for the war effort during the early years of WWII, gradually gives way under the intense bombing of German cities, awareness of the regime’s genocidal activities and military losses on both fronts. In the final year of the war ordinary Germans, realizing the war could not be won, were simply determined to hold on until a just peace can be attained.

I hope readers internalize this book's message: grappling with past threats to our democracy is vital in facing down future threats carrying a greater likelihood of success. 

Maddow’s impressively researched book recounts the period of U.S. history corresponding to the rise of Nazism in Germany and the spread of European fascism. Her laudable goal is ensuring more citizens know the story of leading American figures—captains of industry, Congressmen, and Governors—sympathetic to Nazism and willing to undermine vital democratic norms, embrace anti-Semitism, and engage in coordinated violence to bring fascism to the U.S., and of those unsung heroes who refused to let them succeed.

Maddow rightly views education as vital to ensuring that past isn’t prologue.

I have to put Brecht on this list. Which Brecht? I don’t know, but I find myself coming back to the Journals more often than anything else. These record his responses to the world between 1934 and 1955, but the war years are the most gripping.

Once more, it is the seamlessness with which art and politics come together that characterizes Brecht’s achievement. Brecht is the touchstone, the rock, the ground to which I often return. Brecht’s prose—concrete, direct, transparent—has had more effect on me than any other author. I call it not just “getting to the point” but “getting it right.”