Best Defense

Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

More Reading Lists, and Some Weak-ass Bullshit from the TEDdy Bear People

Here is an interesting one from retired Admiral James Stavridis. As a Naval officer I know pointed out, it isn’t often you see Infinite Jest on a military reading list.

Screen Shot 2016-03-21 at 10.17.55 AM
Screen Shot 2016-03-21 at 10.17.55 AM

Here is an interesting one from retired Admiral James Stavridis. As a Naval officer I know pointed out, it isn’t often you see Infinite Jest on a military reading list.

Here is an interesting one from retired Admiral James Stavridis. As a Naval officer I know pointed out, it isn’t often you see Infinite Jest on a military reading list.

And here is an infantry colonel’s list. Some very good stuff here that should be better known, like the Depuy bio and the Builder study of service cultures.

Also, here is a British defense blog of which I only recently learned.

Straight outta Gettysburg, here are the 200 basic books to read about the Civil War.

Here Max Hastings rounds up recent books on WWII.

From the Australian military, here is a roundup of reading lists. (Speaking of the Aussies, here Brig. Mick Ryan looks back on his time at Johns Hopkins SAIS.) But I wish they had rounded up my own mother-of-all-lists roundup.

I actually read this whole article on all the mistakes in the movie “Top Gun.” I don’t know why.

Meantime, I have developed the opinion that TED talks are usually 21st century bullshit, which is a hipster version of 19th century bullshit (but I suspect without the substance of some Chautauquas). This weak-ass list about leadership did not do much to change my opinion.

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1

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