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What to do this weekend? Well, here is the grandmother of all military reading lists

Here is a summary by a couple of New Zealand academics of the books most commonly listed in military reading lists. Anyone who has read all of them deserves some kind of prize. Top 60 Recommended Leadership Texts – Global Reading Lists f Code The Art of War – Sun Tzu 23 ML The Face ...

By , a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy.
MICHAL CIZEK/AFP/Getty Images
MICHAL CIZEK/AFP/Getty Images
MICHAL CIZEK/AFP/Getty Images

Here is a summary by a couple of New Zealand academics of the books most commonly listed in military reading lists.

Here is a summary by a couple of New Zealand academics of the books most commonly listed in military reading lists.

Anyone who has read all of them deserves some kind of prize.

Top 60 Recommended Leadership Texts – Global Reading Lists

f

Code

The Art of War – Sun Tzu

23

ML

The Face of Battle – John Keegan

22

ML

Defeat into Victory – William Slim

15

ML-Biog

The Challenge of Command: Reading for Military Excellence – Roger Nye

13

ML

We Were Soldiers Once and Young – Harold Moore & James Galloway

13

ML-Biog

The Mask of Command – John Keegan

13

ML

Masters of War – Michael Handel

12

ML

Supreme Command – Eliot Cohen

11

ML

Command in War – Martin Van Creveld

10

ML

The Killer Angels – Michael Shaara

9

Fiction

Company Commander – Charles McDonald

9

ML

Dereliction of Duty – H.R. McMaster

9

ML

Battle Studies – Ardant Du Picq

9

ML

This Kind of War: A Study in Unpreparedness – T.R. Fehrenbach

9

ML

Band of Brothers – Steven Ambrose

8

History

Acts of War – Richard Holmes

8

ML

Thinking in Time: Uses of History for Decision Makers – R. Neustadt & E. May

8

Leadership

In Defence of Duffer’s Drift – Ernest Dunlop Swinton

8

ML

Leadership: The Warrior’s Art – Christopher Kolenda

7

ML

Panzer Leader – Hans Guderian

7

ML-Biog

Diplomacy – Henry Kissinger

7

History

The Prince – Niccolo Machiavelli

7

Lead

Small Unit Leadership: A Common-sense Approach – Dandridge Malone

7

ML

Once an Eagle – Anton Myrer

7

Fiction

The Forgotten Soldier – Guy Sajer

7

ML-Biog

History of the Peloponnesian War – Thucydides

7

History

Red Badge of Courage – Stephen Crane

6

Fiction

On The Psychology of Military Incompetence
– Norman Dixon

6

ML

Leadership Without Easy Answers – Ronald Heifetz

6

Leadership

Follow Me: The Human Element in Leadership – Aubrey Newman

6

Leadership

One Hundred Days: Memoir of the Falklands Battle Group Commander – Sandy Woodward

6

ML-Biog

Caesar’s War Commentaries – Julius Caesar

6

ML

Into the Storm: A Study in Command – Tom Clancy & Frederick Franks

5

ML

Knight’s Cross: A Life of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel – David Fraser

5

ML-Biog

The General’s War – Michael Gordon & Bernard Trainor

5

ML

Starship Troopers – Robert Heinlein

5

Fiction

Platoon Leader: A Memoir of Command in Battle – James McDonough

5

ML-Biog

The Anatomy of Courage – Lord Moran

5

ML

War As I Knew It – George S. Patton

5

ML-Biog

My American Journey – Colin Powell & Joseph Persico

5

ML-Biog

Infantry Attacks – Erwin Rommel

5

ML-Biog

Hope is Not a Method – Gordon Sullivan & Michael Harper

5

Lead/ML

It Doesn’t Take a Hero – Norman Schwarzkopf & Peter Petre

5

ML-Biog

George C. Marshall: Soldier-Statesman of the American Century – Mark Stoler

5

ML-Biog

Good to Great – Jim Collins

5

Leadership

Battle Leadership – Adolf von Schell

5

ML

Eisenhower: Soldier and President – Steven Ambrose

4

ML-Biog

On Becoming a Leader – Warren Bennis

4

Leadership

The Military Maxims of Napoleon – Napoleon Bonaparte

4

ML

The Starfish and the Spider – Ori Brafman & Rod Beckstrom

4

Leadership

Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card

4

Fiction

Seven Habits of Highly Effective People – Stephen Covey

4

PD

A Genius for War: A Life of General George S. Patton – Carlo D’Este

4

ML-Biog

The Instruction of Frederick the Great for His Generals – Frederick the Great

4

ML

The Generalship of Alexander the Great – J.F.C. Fuller

4

ML-Biog

Commander in Chief – Eric Larrabee

4

ML

The Soldier’s Load and the Mobility of a Nation – S.L.A. Marshall

4

ML

Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command in Future War – S.L.A. Marshall

4

ML

Reveries – Maurice, Comte De Saxe

4

ML

Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character – Jonathon Shay

4

Psychology

Thomas E. Ricks is a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy. Twitter: @tomricks1

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