100 Books Like Wild Bill Donovan

Books that tell the story of Special Operations soldiers fighting in the Global War on Terror typically focus all of their efforts on adrenaline, explosions, the men, and the teams. While those are all critical elements and essential to the stories, most of them leave out one of the most crucial factors to keeping Special Operations troops in the fight.

In Special Forces, we had many sayings, but one of the most important was, “if momma ain’t happy, Joe ain’t happy.” 

All active duty soldiers engaged in war, even we Special Operators, depend on our families to keep us going. These may be the details required to keep the household running, keeping the family happy, healthy & fed (as nearly all Special Operators are extremely family-oriented), but also to be the rocks that we can fall back on when needed, the support to keep us pushing forward, and… show more.

The world of Special Operations is typically classified and shrouded in secrecy, for good reason. There are many major, society-changing events that people never truly learn the full story behind due to the need for secrecy or participants who remain tight-lipped until their dying days out of force of habit.

In Jawbreaker, author Ralph Pezzullo was given unparalleled access to the men who were first on the ground in Afghanistan after 9/11, including the man who ran the CIA’s clandestine fight against Al Qaeda and the hunt for Osama bin Laden. 

You don’t know anything about the beginning of what became a twenty-year war until you’ve read this book.

Many Americans who follow geopolitics, the military, or our nation’s involvement in the Global War on Terror know that Private Military Contractors (PMCs) have become a way in which much of these covert and clandestine wars are fought. Even those who know that PMCs exist don’t know much about the types of missions they do, the types of people who staff these outfits, and the places that they’ve been in modern military history.

Zero Footprint chronicles the exploits of one British citizen on his path from a member of the heralded British Tier 1 unit The Special Air Service (SAS). The book follows his life from what he thought was a career-ending injury that led to his being on the frontlines of every major engagement in the clandestine Global War on Terror. This guy was even in Benghazi the night of the famed “13 hours” attack, and this book gives… show more.

Although they once hoped to remain as eternally clandestine and unknown units, the famed Delta Force and Seal Team 6 had their covers blown and have now been memorialized in various books, movies, and television shows. There are still units within the Special Operations and Clandestine Services worlds that remain shrouded in mystery, though, which is exactly how they like it.

This book walks you through the history, jobs, and some of the high-profile missions of one of these such units, once known simply as “The Activity.” A unit so secret that they changed their official unit name every 30 days, their soldiers do not wear uniforms, and who performs the types of missions that everyone hopes are being conducted but nobody knows who has the capabilities to do so. 

This book is the perfect representation of the pinnacle of intelligence, strength, and bravery that exists within the US Special… show more.

In the 1930s, Republicans across America heaped criticism on President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, which they claimed would wither free enterprise and damage the economy. They labeled him a “socialist”—or worse.

Among the Republicans who broke with this broad Republican assault on FDR was John G. Winant, the Republican governor of New Hampshire. Winant gave up state politics to establish FDR’s Social Security program, and after the start of World War II Winant became FDR’s ambassador to London.

Winant’s courage, first in breaking with his party to join FDR, and then helping Winston Churchill and the British people fend off the Nazi assault, is part of Lynne Olson’s authoritative Citizens of London, the Americans Who Stood with Britain in its Darkest, Finest Hour.

In the 1930s, Wendell Willkie was a Democrat who sided with big business and criticized Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt. Then, in a whirlwind, Willkie switched parties and won the Republication presidential nomination in June 1940.

After FDR won the election of 1940, Willkie shattered party expectations again when he called upon Congress to pass FDR’s controversial Lend Lease program to send military aid to European nations facing the assault of Hitler’s Nazi armies. 

Willkie also took a strong stance in support of civil rights. Time and again, he proved he was a leader with a nimble mind unfettered by party politics. He broke the rules by defying those who would predict his politics according to his party affiliation. 

The compelling story of Wendell Willkie and his call for human rights in America and around the world comes to life in David Levering Lewis’s beautifully written biography, The Improbable Wendell Willkie… show more.

Walter White served as the executive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People from 1931 until his death in 1955. A light-skinned Black man often mistaken for white, he used his appearance to infiltrate the white-supremacy power structure and then work for civil rights.

In his evocative autobiography, A Man Called White, White recounts how in 1941 he and civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph pushed President Franklin Roosevelt to take a major step forward in the struggle for civil rights – creating the Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC). It’s a gripping tale about an often-overlooked part of the civil rights movement

The FEPC worked to desegregate the war industries, a mission that reshaped American politics and set the Democratic Party on the path of becoming the party of civil rights.

I love this book, which is warm and beautifully written, because it tells the story of the most vital and consequential political partnership of the last century. Roosevelt and Churchill, both heroes of mine, saved freedom by steering the Allies to victory in World War II over the mighty, ravenous, bloodthirsty, and seemingly invincible Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

This book brings Roosevelt and Churchill to life, showcasing their astounding brilliance and strength, along with their very human pettiness, impatience, and skullduggery, as they work in close concert with one another, press one another, and, when necessary, even work around one another. It’s a marvelous story and a gripping read.

Biography, especially this riveting biography, is a great way to learn about intelligence in World War II. Bradley looks into dark corners to uncover the almost unbelievable truth about a Soviet spy in the front office of American spy chief William J. Donovan. Like James Grafton Rogers, Bradley tells us what it was like to live and work in Washington during World War II—but with another layer of intrigue and, yes, treachery. 75 years after the fact we tend to forget that a group of privileged Americans like Lee—a Rhodes Scholar and Wall Street lawyer distantly related to Robert E. Leen—once thought that communism might be a viable alternative to capitalism and the economic misery of the depression.