Military History Strategy

Often hailed as the godfather of today's elite special forces, Robert Rogers trained and led an unorthodox unit of green provincials, raw woodsmen, farmers, and Indian scouts on "impossible" missions in colonial America that are still the stuff of soldiers' legend. The child of marginalized Scots-Irish immigrants, Rogers learned to survive in New England's dark and deadly forests, grasping, as did few others, that a new world required new forms of warfare. John F. Ross not only re-creates Rogers's life and his spectacular battles with breathtaking immediacy and meticulous accuracy...

For 700 years, Japan was ruled by military commanders who waged war against one another incessantly. Shogun tells the fascinating story of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the man who finally unified and brought lasting peace to the nation. He established a new central government which enabled his descendants to rule Japan for the next 260 years—a period in which Japanese culture as we know it today flourished.

The unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Saul David's comprehensive history, All the King's Men: The British Soldier from the Restoration to Waterloo, read by the actor Sean Barrett. "The British soldier," wrote a Prussian officer who served with Wellington, "is vigorous, well fed, by nature highly brave and intrepid, trained to the most vigorous discipline, and admirably well-armed...

One of the best selling History titles of 2009. Examining the Second World War on every front, Andrew Roberts asks whether, with a different decision-making process and a different strategy, Hitler’s Axis might even have won. Were those German generals who blamed everything on Hitler after the war correct, or were they merely scapegoating their former Führer once he was safely beyond defending himself?

In the early morning hours of June 6, 1944, a small detachment of British airborne troops stormed the German defense forces and paved the way for the Allied invasion of Europe. Pegasus Bridge was the first engagement of D-day, the turning point of World War II. This gripping account of it by acclaimed author Stephen Ambrose brings to life a daring mission so crucial that, had it been unsuccessful, the entire Normandy invasion might have failed.

A classic work of military strategy, On War sets forth the theories and tactics of Carl von Clausewitz, a distinguished Prussian general who was notable for his roles in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The book covers a broad range of topics, including weapons, terrain, troops, and leadership, as well as the importance of defense over offence, the balance of power, and the subordination of war to politics. Praised for its timeless insights, Clausewitz’s treatise is often compared to the work of Machiavelli and Sun Tzu, and remains relevant to military leaders.

The Future of War - which covers civil wars to as yet unknown nuclear conflicts, proxy wars (real) to the Cold War (not), fashionably small wars to the War to End All Wars (it didn't) - is filled with insight and fascinating nuggets of military history and culture from one of the most brilliant military and strategic historians of his generation.

No one is born a leader. But through sheer determination and by confronting life’s challenges, Ant Middleton has come to know the meaning of true leadership. In First Man In, he shares the core lessons he’s learned over the course of his fascinating, exhilarating life. Special forces training is no walk in the park. The rules are strict, and they make sure you learn the hard way, pushing you beyond the limits of what is physically possible. There is no mercy. Even when you are bleeding and broken, to admit defeat is failure.

George S. Patton was a general who achieved greatness in his field by contradicting his own nature. A cavalryman steeped in romantic military tradition, he nevertheless pulled a reluctant American military into the most advanced realms of highly mobile armored warfare. An autocratic snob, Patton created unparalleled rapport and loyalty with the lowliest private in his command.

The Western Front evokes images of mud-spattered men in waterlogged trenches, shielded from artillery blasts and machine-gun fire by a few feet of dirt. This iconic setting was the most critical arena of the Great War. In this epic narrative history, the first volume in a groundbreaking trilogy on the Great War, Nick Lloyd captures the horrific fighting on the Western Front beginning with the surprise German invasion of Belgium in August 1914 and taking us to the Armistice of November 1918.

The Doomsday Machine is Ellsberg's hair-raising insider's account of the most dangerous arms buildup in the history of civilization, whose legacy - and renewal under the Obama administration - threatens the very survival of humanity. It is scarcely possible to estimate the true dangers of our present nuclear policies without penetrating the secret realities of the nuclear strategy of the late Eisenhower and early Kennedy years, when Ellsberg had high-level access to them.

Taking us from the French Revolution to the Cold War, Andrew Roberts presents us with a bracingly honest and deeply insightful look at nine major figures in modern history: Napoleon Bonaparte, Horatio Nelson, Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, George C. Marshall, Charles de Gaulle, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Margaret Thatcher. Each one of these leaders fundamentally shaped the outcome of the war in which their nation was embroiled.

Infantry Attacks is a classic text in the field of military strategy. Written by German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, it was first published in 1937 as a journal-esque chronicle of the author's experiences in World War I, and the lessons he learned there. In it, he provides detailed accounts of a variety of military strategies that rely on speed, deception, and deep penetration into enemy territory to intimidate and surprise opposing forces.

In a narrative that moves like a thriller, Rhodes sheds light on the Reagan administration's unprecedented arms buildup in the early 1980s, as well as the arms-reduction campaign that followed, and Reagan's famous 1986 summit meeting with Gorbachev. Rhodes' detailed exploration of events of this time constitutes a prehistory of the neoconservatives. The story is new, compelling, and continually surprising - a revelatory re-creation of a hugely important era of our recent history.

The Art of War, The Prince, and The Book of Five Rings are three historical pieces that deal with strategy. The Art of War is an ancient Chinese military treatise, and each chapter within the treatise is devoted to a distinct aspect of warfare and how that applies to military strategy and tactics. The Prince is a practical guide for ruling an empire. The Book of Five Rings is a Japanese text that has been regarded as a treatise on the strategy for winning.

Written before Alexander the Great was born, this Chinese treatise on war has become one of the most influential works on the subject. Read widely in the east since its appearance 2,500 years ago, The Art of War first came to the west with a French Jesuit in 1782. It has been studied by generals from Napoleon to Rommel, and it is still required reading in most military academies of the world.

Composed in the 5th century BC, Sun Tzu's Art of War is the earliest-known treatise on military strategy, and is still hugely popular around the world for its perceptive tactical advice to commanders on how to win at war with minimal bloodshed. Aimed at all those who want to study the text in depth, this is the first step-by-step guide to the famous treatise, breaking down the 13 chapters of the original into 200 easily digested lessons, from 'do not press a desperate enemy' to 'control your troops through bond of loyalty' to "when you are weak, beware attack".

"The Prince" is the most famous of Machiavelli's works; it gives very clear, precise and realistic instructions on how to gain and maintain power, fortune, and glory, sometimes at the expense of others. Written in 1513, it is one of the most feared and hated political treatises, taken to be the first work in which the effect the leader desires to achieve is taken as more important than any abstract ideal or ethical value that might prevent him from taking immoral action.

One of the most profound studies of warfare ever written, The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China presents us with an Eastern tradition of strategic thought that emphasizes outwitting one's opponent through speed, stealth, flexibility, and a minimum of force - an approach very different from that stressed in the West, where the advantages of brute strength have overshadowed more subtle methods.

In the winter of 1941, as Britain faced defeat on all fronts, an RAF reconnaissance pilot photographed an alien-looking object on the French coast near Le Havre. The mysterious device - a “Wurzburg Dish” - appeared to be a new form of radar technology: ultra-compact, highly precise, and pointed directly across the English Channel.