S2 Actual reading list

Democracy In America

Alexis De Toqueville

Democracy in America is a classic French text by Alexis de Tocqueville. Its title translates as On Democracy in America, but English translations are usually simply entitled Democracy in America. In the book, Tocqueville examines the democratic revolution that he believed had been occurring over the previous several hundred years.

Desert War: The North African Campaign 1940-43

Alan Moorehead

Penguin Books · 2001

The seminal account of the battle between Montgomery’s Eighth Army and Rommel’s Afrika Corps, amidst the endless harsh wastes of the Western Desert. In 1940, Alan Moorehead was sent to cover the North Africa campaign by the Daily Express, and he followed its dramatic course all the way to 1943. The three books he subsequently wrote about the Desert War – later collected as his ‘African Trilogy’ – were swiftly acclaimed as a classic account of the tussle between Montgomery’s Eighth Army and Rommel’s Afrika Corps, under the beating sun of the Egyptian Sahara's Western Desert. Moorehead was responsible for the celebrated insight that tank battles in the desert are like battles at sea, the lumbering tanks like ships lost in a vast ocean of sand. The New Statesman could not have put it better when it described his achievement with this riveting book: ‘There is something of genius in the breadth and penetration of his vision , which encompasses the whole panorama of war and then narrows it down to the particular: the soldier stubbing out his cigarette before going into action, the expression on a tank commander’s face as he is hit… The story of the African campaigns will go down in history as one of the great epics of mankind, largely thanks to Mr Moorehead’s account.’

Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies

Ben Macintyre

In his celebrated bestsellers Agent Zigzag and Operation Mincemeat, Ben Macintyre told the dazzling true stories of a remarkable WWII double agent and of how the Allies employed a corpse to fool the Nazis and assure a decisive victory.  In Double Cross, Macintyre returns with the untold story of the grand final deception of the war and of the extraordinary spies who achieved it.    On June 6, 1944, 150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy and suffered an astonishingly low rate of casualties.  D-Day was a stunning military accomplishment, but it was also a masterpiece of trickery. Operation Fortitude, which protected and enabled the invasion, and the Double Cross system, which specialized in turning German spies into double agents, deceived the Nazis into believing that the Allies would attack at Calais and Norway rather than Normandy. It was the most sophisticated and successful deception operation ever carried out, ensuring that Hitler kept an entire army awaiting a fake invasion, saving thousands of lives, and securing an Allied victory at the most critical juncture in the war.    The story of D-Day has been told from the point of view of the soldiers who fought in it, the tacticians who planned it, and the generals who led it. But this epic event in world history has never before been told from the perspectives of the key individuals in the Double Cross System. These include its director (a brilliant, urbane intelligence officer), a colorful assortment of MI5 handlers (as well as their counterparts in Nazi intelligence), and the five spies who formed Double Cross’s nucleus: a dashing  Serbian playboy, a Polish fighter-pilot, a bisexual Peruvian party girl, a deeply eccentric Spaniard with a diploma in chicken farming and a volatile Frenchwoman, whose obsessive love for her pet dog very nearly wrecked the entire plan. The D-Day spies were, without question, one of the oddest military units ever assembled, and their success depended on the delicate, dubious relationship between spy and spymaster, both German and British. Their enterprise was saved from catastrophe by a shadowy sixth spy whose heroic sacrifice is revealed here for the first time.    With the same depth of research, eye for the absurd and masterful storytelling that have made Ben Macintyre an international bestseller,  Double Cross is a captivating narrative of the spies who wove a web so intricate it ensnared Hitler’s army and carried thousands of D-Day troops across the Channel in safety.

Dragon Days: Time for "Unconventional" Tactics

H. John Poole

This book shows how to control a contested region with squad-sized outposts . North Vietnam and Iran have done it. Now, North Korea may try to consolidate the South with such a strategy. Scores of tiny Western outposts could do this too. After a short threat assessment, Dragon Days describes what a single U.S. rifle squad must do to safely accomplish such a mission in Asia. It will need the following Unconventional Warfare (UW) (1) some police procedure; (2) obscurely defending; (3) finding an enemy weakness; (4) making a secret approach; (5) disguising the attack; (6) precluding a counterstroke; (7) rural E&E; (8) enhancing rural terrain (9) urban E&E; and (10) enhancing urban terrain . Because of Asia's bottom-up culture, the little picture is where such an ability originates. This heavily illustrated book contains more small-unit perspective than any U.S. govt. publication. In fact, it may still constitute America's only UW tactical-technique manual .

Dustoff 7-3

Erik Sabiston

Warriors Publishing Group · 2015-05-19

This book is for heroes. Dustoff 7-3 tells the true story of four unlikely heroes in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan, where medics are forced to descend on wires to reach the wounded and helicopter pilots must fight wind, weather, and enemy fire to pluck casualties from some of the world s most difficult combat arenas. Complete opposites thrown together, cut off, and outnumbered, Chief Warrant Officer Erik Sabiston and his flight crew answered the call in a race against time, not to take lives but to save them. The concept of evacuating wounded soldiers by helicopter developed in the Korean War and became a staple during the war in Vietnam where heroic, unarmed chopper crews flew vital missions known to the grateful grunts on the ground as Dustoffs. The crew of Dustoff 7-3 carried on that heroic tradition, flying over a region that had seen scores of American casualties, known among veterans as the Valley of Death. At the end of Operation Hammer Down, they had rescued 14 soldiers, made three critical supply runs, recovered two soldiers killed in action, and nearly died. It took all of three days.

Eastern Approaches

Fitzroy Maclean

Penguin Global · September 1, 2004

70th Anniversary Edition with a New Foreword by Sunday Times Bestselling Author Simon Sebag Montefiore 'A classic' Observer | 'A legend' Washington Post | 'The best book you will read this year' Colonel Tim Collins Posted to Moscow as a young diplomat before the Second World War, Fitzroy Maclean travelled widely, with or without permission, in some of the wildest and remotest parts of the Soviet Union, then virtually closed to foreigners. In 1942 he fought as a founder member of the SAS in North Africa. There Maclean specialised in hair-raising commando raids behind enemy lines, including the daring and outrageous kidnapping of the German Consul in Axis-controlled Iraq. In 1943 he parachuted into German-occupied Yugoslavia as Winston Churchill's personal representative to Josip Broz Tito and remained there until 1945, all enemy attempts to capture him proving unsuccessful. Eastern Approaches is Maclean's classic, gripping account of the sybaritic delights of diplomatic life, the thrill of remote travel in the then-forbidden zones of Central Asia, and the violence and adventure of world-changing tours in North Africa and Yugoslavia. Maclean is the original British action hero and this is blistering reading. 'This book literally changed my life' Simon Sebag Montefiore 'A man of daring character' Winston Churchill 'An absorbing mixture of military adventure, political judgement, urbane wit, cool humour and surprising incident' Financial Times 'One of the bravest men in the British army, and one of the funniest' Ben Macintyre 'Entertaining, important, the model for James Bond' New York Times

Enigma: The Battle for the Code

Hugh Sebag-Montefiore

Wiley · February 12, 2004

Winston Churchill called the cracking of the German Enigma Code "the secret weapon that won the war." Now, for the first time, noted British journalist Hugh-Sebag-Montefiore reveals the complete story of the breaking of the code by the Allies--the breaking that played a crucial role in the outcome of World War II. This fascinating account relates the never-before-told, hair-raising stories of the heroic British and American sailors, spies, and secret agents who faced death in order to capture vital codebooks from sinking ships and snatch them from under the noses of Nazi officials. Sebag-Montefiore also relates new details about the genesis of the code, little-known facts about how the Poles first cracked the Luftwaffe's version of the code (and then passed it along to the British), and the feverish activities at Bletchley Park. Based in part on documents recently unearthed from American and British archives--including previously confidential government files--and in part on unforgettable, firsthand accounts of surviving witnesses, Enigma unearths the stunning truth about the brilliant piece of decryption that changed history.

Expeditionary Eagles: Outmaneuvering the Taliban

H. John Poole

Posterity Press · 2010

The Afghan War is still salvagable. For America, it has been about denying sanctuary to al-Qaeda. For local factions and governments, a traditional fund raiser--heroin--is more important. Only with less smuggling of drugs out and ordnance in, can the insurgency be limited. Both have been broken down into more easily concealable "pieces." All traffic along the 14 entrance highways must be better inspected to curtail their movement. Herein lies the most detailed study in existence of Pakistan's drug and militant madrasa networks. Also discussed is how a lone U.S. squad could--without a single artillery round or drone missile--rely on deception to defend a roadside outpost against hundreds of attacking narco-insurgents.

Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers: Innovation in the U.S. Army, 1917-1945

David E. Johnson

The U.S. Army entered World War II unprepared. In addition, lacking Germany's blitzkrieg approach of coordinated armor and air power, the army was organized to fight two wars: one on the ground and one in the air. Previous commentators have blamed Congressional funding and public apathy for the army's unprepared state. David E. Johnson believes instead that the principal causes were internal: army culture and bureaucracy, and their combined impact on the development of weapons and doctrine. Johnson examines the U.S. Army's innovations for both armor and aviation between the world wars, arguing that the tank became a captive of the conservative infantry and cavalry branches, while the airplane's development was channeled by air power insurgents bent on creating an independent air force. He maintains that as a consequence, the tank's potential was hindered by the traditional arms, while air power advocates focused mainly on proving the decisiveness of strategic bombing, neglecting the mission of tactical support for ground troops. Minimal interaction between ground and air officers resulted in insufficient cooperation between armored forces and air forces. Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers makes a major contribution to a new understanding of both the creation of the modern U.S. Army and the Army's performance in World War II. The book also provides important insights for future military innovation.

Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam

Frances FitzGerald

1975

Frances FitzGerald's landmark history of Vietnam and the Vietnam War, "a compassionate and penetrating account of the collision of two societies that remain untranslatable to one another." ( New York Times Book Review ) This magisterial work, based on Frances FitzGerald's many years of research and travels, takes us inside the history of Vietnam -- the traditional, ancestor-worshiping villages, the conflicts between Communists and anti-Communists, Catholics and Buddhists, generals and monks, the disruption created by French colonialism, and America's ill-fated intervention -- and reveals the country as seen through Vietnamese eyes.  Originally published in 1972,  Fire in the Lake  was the first history of Vietnam written by an American and won the Pulitzer Prize, the Bancroft Prize, and the National Book Award. With a clarity and insight unrivaled by any author before it or since, Frances FitzGerald illustrates how America utterly and tragically misinterpreted the realities of Vietnam.

For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond

Ben Macintyre

Bloomsbury · 2008

Published to coincide with the 2008 Imperial War Museum exhibition of the same name, this is a thrilling stand-alone book that looks into the entwined worlds of James Bond and Ian Fleming. The book and exhibition will explore how Fleming's 007 emerged against the background of the Second World War and the Cold War, and how Bond's world was based on the realities (and fantasies) of Fleming's life as a wartime spy-master and peacetime bon viveur. They will show how the film version of Bond evolved for a later age, and answer a question that has obsessed generations of Bond fans over the where does the world of Ian Fleming end, and that of James Bond begin? Stylishly illustrated, For Your Eyes Only will incorporate a treasure-trove of gadgets, costumes, props, and storyboards from the films - Daniel Craig's blood-stained shirt from Casino Royale, the Aston Martin DB5, complete with weaponry - as well as memorabilia from Fleming's personal his smoking jacket, the manuscript for Casino Royale, his golden typewriter, his guns, and much more. Alongside this array of extraordinary visuals, Ben Macintyre tells the story of how Fleming created the most popular legend of all time. On the centenary of Fleming's birth, he looks at the real people on whom the writer based his fictional creations - friends, colleagues, lovers, and of course, the notorious villains. Exploring the tradition of spy fiction past and present - with specific attention to the Cold War - Macintyre explains the astonishing legacy of the Bond books and the enduring appeal of a fictional secret agent who not only lived twice, but proved to be immortal.

Forward Observer: A U.S. Army Artillery Detail in the North Africa Campaign of World War Two

Edwin Westrate

Forward Observer, first published in 1944, is the account of a U.S. Army artillery observation crew in World War Two. The author based the book on interviews with two surviving members of the crew while they were recuperating from injuries received after their prison ship was sunk in the Mediterranean (the men were being transferred to Italy from Africa, en route to a German prison camp). The account, fast-paced and filled with action, depicts the soldier's lives from training at the Army's Field Artillery School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, a short stay for more training in England, and then the unit's transfer to Tunisia where they occupy the frontlines as forward observers for their artillery battalion. Forward Observer is a moving, personal story of a seldom-told aspect of combat in the Second World War. Included are 3 pages of maps.

Genesis, Creation and Early Man: The Orthodox Christian Vision

Seraphim Rose

Saint Herman of Alaska Brotherhood · 2000

Amidst the creation/evolution debate that is now raging, with evidence being offered for both sides, few have made use of what Fr. Seraphim Rose called "the missing evidence": the teaching of the ancient Orthodox Holy Fathers on the events of creation, the first-created world, the natures of created things, and the original nature of man. Now for the first time in the English language, this teaching has been gathered together and set forth in a thorough, detailed, and above all honest manner. Perhaps more than anyone else in our times, Fr. Seraphim Rose searched, studied, prayed and suffered to understand how the ancients noetically apprehended the creation in the light of the God-inspired book of Genesis. Having acquired their mind, he has presented to the modern world the harmonious Patristic vision of the cosmos. A vital answer to the contemporary "crisis of meaning," this book sheds startling new light on the mysteries of our origin. The Divine vision of the ancient Fathers opens up unforeseen dimensions of the creation: deeper levels of reality that cannot be reached through rational or scientific means.

God's Revelation to the Human Heart

Seraphim Rose

St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood · 1987

What does man seek in religion, and what should he seek in it? How does God reveal Himself in order to bring man to a knowledge of the Truth? How does suffering help this revelation to occur?These and other questions were discussed by Fr. Seraphim Rose, an Orthodox Christian monk from the mountains of northern California, during a lecture he gave at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1981. The contents of this lecture comprise God's Revelation to the Human Heart. Drawing from a variety of sources -- the Holy Scriptures, patristic writings, the lives of both ancient and modern saints, and accounts of persecuted Christians behind the Iron Curtain -- Fr. Seraphim goes to the core of all Christian life: the conversion of the heart of man, which causes it to bum with love for Christ and transforms one into a new being.

Historical Dynamics: Why States Rise and Fall (Princeton Studies in Complexity)

Peter Turchin

Princeton University Press · 2003

Many historical processes are dynamic. Populations grow and decline. Empires expand and collapse. Religions spread and wither. Natural scientists have made great strides in understanding dynamical processes in the physical and biological worlds using a synthetic approach that combines mathematical modeling with statistical analyses. Taking up the problem of territorial dynamics--why some polities at certain times expand and at other times contract--this book shows that a similar research program can advance our understanding of dynamical processes in history. Peter Turchin develops hypotheses from a wide range of social, political, economic, and demographic geopolitics, factors affecting collective solidarity, dynamics of ethnic assimilation/religious conversion, and the interaction between population dynamics and sociopolitical stability. He then translates these into a spectrum of mathematical models, investigates the dynamics predicted by the models, and contrasts model predictions with empirical patterns. Turchin's highly instructive empirical tests demonstrate that certain models predict empirical patterns with a very high degree of accuracy. For instance, one model accounts for the recurrent waves of state breakdown in medieval and early modern Europe. And historical data confirm that ethno-nationalist solidarity produces an aggressively expansive state under certain conditions (such as in locations where imperial frontiers coincide with religious divides). The strength of Turchin's results suggests that the synthetic approach he advocates can significantly improve our understanding of historical dynamics.

History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides

Penguin Group · 30 September 1954

A definitive and refreshingly readable new translation of Thucydides's History of the Peloponnesian War, paired with a brilliant introduction on how to read and understand Thucydides. Thucydides called his work a "possession for all time," and his History of the Peloponnesian War has been essential reading for generals and politicians for centuries. Robin Waterfield's translation of Thucydides's sweeping narrative vividly depicts the events of the war between Athens and Sparta that began in 431 BCE and would continue until 404, a conflict that embroiled not only mainland Greece but Greek states from the eastern Mediterranean and as far west as Italy and Sicily. The only extant contemporary narrative of this conflict, Thucydides's History brims with military, moral, and political reflections, offering critical commentary on challenges that still dominate our world today, from the strife of civil war to the devastation of widespread plague to the nature of political power. Thucydides died before completing the account-it ends in 410-but his legacy is timeless. One of the great masterpieces of classical Greece, The History of the Peloponnesian War offers an incisive and timely window into the conflicts of the past.

Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State

Götz Aly

Metropolitan · 2007

A "provocative" account of great "intellectual significance," illuminating the economic workings of the Third Reich—and the reasons ordinary Germans supported the Nazi state (The New York Times Book Review) In this groundbreaking book, historian Götz Aly addresses one of modern history's greatest conundrums: How did Hitler win the allegiance of ordinary Germans? The answer is as shocking as it is persuasive: by engaging in a campaign of theft on an almost unimaginable scale—and by channeling the proceeds into generous social programs—Hitler literally "bought" his people's consent. Drawing on secret files and financial records, Aly shows that while Jews and citizens of occupied lands suffered crippling taxation, mass looting, enslavement, and destruction, most Germans enjoyed an improved standard of living. Buoyed by millions of packages soldiers sent from the front, Germans also benefited from the systematic plunder of Jewish possessions. Any qualms were swept away by waves of tax breaks and government handouts. Hitler's Beneficiaries has been hailed as "startling" by Richard Evans, and as "fascinating and important" by Christopher Browning. Above all, as Omer Bartov testifies, this remarkable book "irreversibly transforms our understanding of the Third Reich."

Hitler's Foreign Executioners: Europe's Dirty Secret

Christopher Hale

The History Press · 2011

How and why more than one million non-Germans joined Hitler's "war of annihilation" Revealing for the first time Heinrich Himmler's master plan for Europe, this book discusses his dream of an SS empire with no place for either the Nazi Party or Adolf Hitler. His astonishingly ambitious plan depended on the recruitment of tens of thousands of "Germanic" peoples to build an "SS Europa." This book, researched in archives all over Europe and using first-hand testimony, exposes Europe's dirty secret—that nearly half a million Europeans and more than a million Soviet citizens enlisted in the armed forces of the Third Reich—to fight a crusade against "Jewish-Bolshevism." No other historian has examined the connections between these SS "foreign legions" (both police and Waffen-SS) and the Holocaust. Even today, some apologists claim that the foreign volunteers were merely soldiers "like any other" and fought a decent war against Stalin's Red Army. Christopher Hale demonstrates conclusively that these surprisingly common views are mistaken.

Homeland Siege: Tactics for Police and Military

H. John Poole

Posterity Press · 2009

America is still in serious trouble. There's no way all of her internal problems have been self-inflicted. Yet, many still (1) ISIS and al-Qaeda are her only foes; (2) her intelligence agencies see every threat coming; and (3) her military is the best in the world at all things. This book reassesses the breakdown from a "bottom-up" perspective, as that's how Islamists, Communists, and criminals like to take over. Such "qualitative research" is regularly used by U.S. police departments. After detailing the subversion, this book (1) the most extensive study of hostage rescue ever attempted; (2) a safer way for grunts and SWATs to quickly seize any contested building; and (3) how Nepal was finally taken over by China at the ballot box.

Hybrid Warfare: Fighting Complex Opponents from the Ancient World to the Present

Williamson Murray

Cambridge University Press · 2012

Hybrid warfare has been an integral part of the historical landscape since the ancient world, but only recently have analysts incorrectly categorized these conflicts as unique. Great powers throughout history have confronted opponents who used a combination of regular and irregular forces to negate the advantage of the great powers' superior conventional military strength. As this study shows, hybrid wars are labor-intensive and long-term affairs; they are difficult struggles that defy the domestic logic of opinion polls and election cycles. Hybrid wars are also the most likely conflicts of the twenty-first century, as competitors use hybrid forces to wear down America's military capabilities in extended campaigns of exhaustion. Nine historical examples of hybrid warfare, from ancient Rome to the modern world, provide readers with context by clarifying the various aspects of conflicts and examining how great powers have dealt with them in the past.

Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945

Max Hastings

Here, for the first time, Max Hastings gives us a magnificent, single-volume history of World War II in its entirety. Through his strikingly detailed stories of everyday people, he provides an intimate portrait of the world at war.

Inside the VC and the NVA

Michael Lee Lanning

Ivy Books · 1994

"An intimate, candid portrait of the Viet Cong/North Vietnamese Army...An absolute necessity for Vietnamese-studies collections." During the war in Vietnam, the North Vietnamese communists had to place their trust in the oldest and most reliable tool of the individual soldier; America believed that firepower, lgoistics, and technology would be sufificent for victory. The North Vietnamese won. INSIDE THE VC AND THE NVA, written by two veterans with six-and-a-half years combined experience, shows how. A Dual Main Selection of the Military Book Club

Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al-Qaeda

John Keegan

Knopf · 2003

In fiction, the spy is a glamorous figure whose secrets make or break peace, but, historically, has intelligence really been a vital step to military victories? In this breakthrough study, the preeminent war historian John Keegan goes to the heart of a series of important conflicts to develop a powerful argument about military intelligence. In his characteristically wry and perceptive prose, Keegan offers us nothing short of a new history of war through the prism of intelligence. He brings to life the split-second decisions that went into waging war before the benefit of aerial surveillance and electronic communications. The English admiral Horatio Nelson was hot on the heels of Napoleon’s fleet in the Mediterranean and never knew it, while Stonewall Jackson was able to compensate for the Confederacy’s disadvantage in firearms and manpower with detailed maps of the Appalachians. In the past century, espionage and decryption have changed the face of the Japanese surprise attack at the Battle of the Midway was thwarted by an early warning. Timely information, however, is only the beginning of the surprising and disturbing aspects of decisions that are made in war, where brute force is often more critical. Intelligence in War is a thought-provoking work that ranks among John Keegan’s finest achievements.

Into Oblivion: The Story of Pionier-Batallion 305

Jason D. Mark

After 16 months of training and garrison duty in France, Pionier-Bataillon 305 – together with the rest of 305. Infanterie-Division – was sent to the Eastern Front. Little could they know that an inevitable train of events had been set in motion that would lead to their destruction at Stalingrad barely nine months later. An unprecedented discovery of original material has permitted an examination of the brutal fighting on the Eastern Front through the eyes of one German battalion. Commanded by apolitical officers, reservists mainly, its ranks were filled with older-than-normal recruits. When they arrived on the Eastern Front in May 1942, it was a first time visit for most of them, yet they sensed what awaited them. Everyone knew someone who had been killed in the Soviet Union. Stories about the ferocity of combat on the Eastern Front had reached them through the soldier’s grapevine. They were under no illusions, but still believed they would prevail. Weeks of monotonous, endless marching were interspersed with terrifying encounters and set-piece attacks. How would this fresh battalion compare with experienced units? Were its men less jaded and more inspired than those that had been at the front since Barbarossa began in June 1941? Was the arrival of a tough, battle-hardened commander enough to compensate for the unit’s lack of combat experience? What effect did the ongoing casualties have on both the soldiers and the battalion’s performance in battle? By exploring and answering these questions and others, this intimate analysis of an ordinary battalion enables the Eastern Front to be seen as never before. • 620 pages on a high-quality satin (semi-gloss) stock • 210 x 157mm • Hardcover only • 327 photos • 56 maps and sketches • 7 aerial photos • 5 tables • 3 appendices, including officer biographies and medal lists.