Fellow TexAgers, I need some book recommendations. I'm looking for something that's in the realm of politics, history, military, intelligence, Presidential, etc.

To give you an idea of what I'm looking for, the last 3 good books I read were Guests of the Ayatollah, Black Hawk Down, and Ghost Wars.

Any of your thoughts would be welcome. Thanks in advance.

Try the General and the Jaguar.

Black Jack Pershing vs. Pancho Villa...a good read.

Also, The Devil in White City...late 1800's with America coming into it current state in very positive and negative ways with all sorts of "wow, I didn't know that" tidbits.

Ghost Wars by Steven Coll and Shadow Wars by Richard Minter are excellent reads on the how and why of the current West vs. Islamo-fascist actions.

1776 if you haven't read it yet. It's a quick read and covers pretty much all of your criteria.

"Devil Soldiers" by Caleb Carr is a good read about an American mercenary in China in the 1860s.

Read a good book called "The Great Game" about Afghanistan a few years back. Can't remember the author right now.

Just finished John Keegan's "Intelligence and War." It is good but not great. There was a good book out called "Military intelligence blunders" that was fairly good.

that's it for now.

One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer by Nathaniel Fick is EXCELLENT.

Get it today, and you won't be disapointed.

Sole Survivor

It is about a 4man SEAL team in Afghanistan. They were discovered by some Afghanis and tried to decide if they should kill them. If they killed them, they violated the ROE and could be brought up on charges. If they let them go, the Afghanis could go tell the Taliban where the SEAL team was and then they would be a hellish firefight.

They let the guys go. 3 of the 4 members were killed. Their Lt. received the MOH. The survivor wrote the book. I'm in the middle of it right now.

Oh - and the survivor is a Texan who went to SAM.

Guitarsoup, do you know how many Sam Houston Institute of Technology (acronym = S.H.I.T.)grads, or ex-stooges go into special operations? I'm curious.

The book is Lone Survivor, not Sole Survivor.

No clue. Don't really care. Marcus Luttrel went to SAM. He talks fondly of Texas and that he serves in the military because of his pride and patriotism in America and Texas. I'm proud to have guys like him fighting for us.

http://www.amazon.com/Lone-Survivor-Eyewitness-Account-Operation/dp/0316067598

Try not to bow up too much. I would LOVE to see AGGIES dominate special operations forces, but as many of my pipe dreams it just may not be in the cards.

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"Devil Soldiers" by Caleb Carr is a good read about an American mercenary in China in the 1860s.

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Agree, very interesting about a subject I knew nothing about, I also like his fiction.

Jeff Shaara's historical novels are very good. Read the one on WWI (To the Last Man)last year and his two on Revolutionary War (Rise to Rebellion and The Glorious Cause)earlier this year. Past years have read his Civil War Trilogy and War with Mexico (The Last Full Measure)book.

If you're into the Revolutionary period, I'd recommend John Adams and 1776 by David McCullough, as well as Founding Brothers by Joseph Ellis.

Anything by David McCullough is a safe bet.

I would say Churchill's WW2 series, (six books) would be a top recommendation. I have read these books over and over again.

[This message has been edited by aggiechugger (edited 4/15/2008 8:25a).]

Oh, John Keegan's books are pretty great.

The Great Game by Peter Hopkirk. Read them all, and all really great. Reading the Coming China Wars, by Navarro. Pretty scary.

Patton: A Genius For War by Carlo D'Este

I just started this autobiagraphy and its great so far.

First In

http://www.amazon.com/First-Insiders-Account-Spearheaded-Afghanistan/dp/0345496612/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208888204&sr=1-1

Here's a couple I've read recently ...


Endgame, 1945 / David Stafford

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To end a history of World War II at VE Day is to leave the tale half told. While the war may have seemed all but over by Hitler's final birthday (April 20), Stafford's chronicle of the three months that followed tells a different, and much richer, story.


ENDGAME 1945 highlights the gripping personal stories of nine men and women, ranging from soldiers to POWs to war correspondents, who witnessed firsthand the Allied struggle to finish the terrible game at last. Through their ground-level movements, Stafford traces the elaborate web of events that led to the war's real resolution: the deaths of Hitler and Mussolini, the liberation of Buchenwald and Dachau, and the Allies' race with the Red Army to establish a victors' foothold in Europe, to name a few. From Hitler's April decision never to surrender to the start of the Potsdam Conference, Stafford brings an unprecedented focus to the war's "final chapter."


Narrative history at its most compelling, ENDGAME 1945 is the riveting story of three turbulent months that truly shaped the modern world.

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The Last Escape / Tony Rennell & John Nichol

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The author of Tornado Down, former RAF Flight Lt. Nichol was a Gulf War POW, while Last Days of Glory author Rennell is the former associate editor of the London Sunday Times. They cleverly weave WWII policy decisions dealing with POWs with firsthand accounts of POWs inside prison camps in Europe and during the forced evacuation marches many endured during the last months of the war. As the Russians advanced in summer 1944, POWs were crammed into boxcars (and, later, ships), attacked by guards in retaliation for Allied bombing of Germany and sent on extensive forced marches, described here in horrifying detail. As the war ended, some Red Cross relief convoys got through, but General Patton failed in an attempt to liberate a POW camp holding his son-in-law behind German lines. The reluctance of Russians to return liberated British and American POWs to the West was balanced by the issue of forced repatriation of former Soviet POWs who didn't want to return to the Stalinist state. Nichol and Rennell offer anecdotal evidence that some POWs were killed by the SS, and retribution by prisoners against brutal guards also occurred. In the postwar lives of a few POWs featured, incarceration took a physical and psychological toll. While offering little in the way of new information, and failing to cover fully the complete spectrum of prison camps and prisoner nationalities, the authors provide a compelling account of the ways, means and effects of mass imprisonment during the last terrible century.

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One that I enjoyed was a fictional book that examines alternate options during WWII.

The Hitler Options: Alternate Decisions of World War II - Kenneth Macksey

The author/editor enlisted the assitance of ten WWII historians to examine ten different key decision points and what possible outcomes could have occurred given the same technology and thought processes of those involved.