Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq

History

Thomas E. Ricks

Asia

Pengin Books

Churchill & Orwell: The Fight for Freedom

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Duckworth

The Nimitz Lecture series hosts a wide array of distinguished and nationally recognized public figures who are scholars, professional military persons, or government officials--either foreign or domestic--for a series of lectures on national security affairs. This volume examines why U.S. generals were more successful in World War II than in Korea, Vietnam, or Afganhistan and looks specifically at General O.P. Smith as a case study.

The History and Success of American Generals

Institute of Governmental Studies Press

[Audiobook CD Library Edition in vinyl case.] From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Fiasco and The Gamble comes an epic history of the decline of American military leadership from World War II to Iraq. History has been kinder to the American generals of World War II -- Marshall, Eisenhower, Patton, and Bradley -- than to the generals of the wars that followed. Is this merely nostalgia? In The Generals, Thomas E. Ricks answers the question definitively: No, it is not -- in no small part because of a widening gulf between performance and accountability. During the Second World War, scores of American generals were relieved of command simply for not being good enough. Today as one American colonel said bitterly during the Iraq War, ''As matters stand now, a private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war.'' In The Generals we meet great leaders and suspect ones, generals who rose to the occasion and those who failed themselves and their soldiers. Marshall and Eisenhower cast long shadows over this story, but no single figure is more inspiring than Marine General O. P. Smith, whose fighting retreat from the Chinese onslaught into Korea in the winter of 1950 snatched a kind of victory from the jaws of annihilation. But Smith's courage and genius in the face of one of the grimmest scenarios the marines have ever faced only cast the shortcomings of the people who put him there in sharper relief. If Korea showed the first signs of a culture that neither punished mediocrity nor particularly rewarded daring, the Vietnam War saw American military leadership bottom out. The My Lai massacre is held up as the emblematic event of this dark chapter of our history. In the wake of Vietnam, a battle for the soul of the US Army was waged with impressive success. It became a transformed institution, reinvigorated from the bottom up. But if the body was highly toned, its head still suffered from familiar problems, resulting in leadership that, from the first Iraq War through to the present, was tactically savvy but strategically obtuse -- one that would win battles but would end wars badly. Thomas E. Ricks has made a close study of America's military leaders for three decades, and in his hands this story resounds with larger meaning: the transmission of values, strategic thinking, the difference between an organization that learns and one that fails. Military history of the highest quality, The Generals is also essential reading for anyone with an interest in the difference between good leaders and bad ones.

The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today: Library Edition

Military

Blackstone Pub

The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Fiasco and The Gamble comes an epic history of the decline of American military leadership from World War II to Iraq. History has been kinder to the American generals of World War II -- Marshall, Eisenhower, Patton, and Bradley -- than to the generals of the wars that followed. Is this merely nostalgia? In The Generals, Thomas E. Ricks answers the question definitively: No, it is not -- in no small part because of a widening gulf between performance and accountability. During the Second World War, scores of American generals were relieved of command simply for not being good enough. Today as one American colonel said bitterly during the Iraq War, ''As matters stand now, a private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war.'' In The Generals we meet great leaders and suspect ones, generals who rose to the occasion and those who failed themselves and their soldiers. Marshall and Eisenhower cast long shadows over this story, but no single figure is more inspiring than Marine General O. P. Smith, whose fighting retreat from the Chinese onslaught into Korea in the winter of 1950 snatched a kind of victory from the jaws of annihilation. But Smith's courage and genius in the face of one of the grimmest scenarios the marines have ever faced only cast the shortcomings of the people who put him there in sharper relief. If Korea showed the first signs of a culture that neither punished mediocrity nor particularly rewarded daring, the Vietnam War saw American military leadership bottom out. The My Lai massacre is held up as the emblematic event of this dark chapter of our history. In the wake of Vietnam, a battle for the soul of the US Army was waged with impressive success. It became a transformed institution, reinvigorated from the bottom up. But if the body was highly toned, its head still suffered from familiar problems, resulting in leadership that, from the first Iraq War through to the present, was tactically savvy but strategically obtuse -- one that would win battles but would end wars badly. Thomas E. Ricks has made a close study of America's military leaders for three decades, and in his hands this story resounds with larger meaning: the transmission of values, strategic thinking, the difference between an organization that learns and one that fails. Military history of the highest quality, The Generals is also essential reading for anyone with an interest in the difference between good leaders and bad ones.

Blackstone Publishing

[MP3CD audiobook format in vinyl case.]  From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Fiasco and The Gamble comes an epic history of the decline of American military leadership from World War II to Iraq. History has been kinder to the American generals of World War II -- Marshall, Eisenhower, Patton, and Bradley -- than to the generals of the wars that followed. Is this merely nostalgia? In The Generals, Thomas E. Ricks answers the question definitively: No, it is not -- in no small part because of a widening gulf between performance and accountability. During the Second World War, scores of American generals were relieved of command simply for not being good enough. Today as one American colonel said bitterly during the Iraq War, ''As matters stand now, a private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war.'' In The Generals we meet great leaders and suspect ones, generals who rose to the occasion and those who failed themselves and their soldiers. Marshall and Eisenhower cast long shadows over this story, but no single figure is more inspiring than Marine General O. P. Smith, whose fighting retreat from the Chinese onslaught into Korea in the winter of 1950 snatched a kind of victory from the jaws of annihilation. But Smith's courage and genius in the face of one of the grimmest scenarios the marines have ever faced only cast the shortcomings of the people who put him there in sharper relief. If Korea showed the first signs of a culture that neither punished mediocrity nor particularly rewarded daring, the Vietnam War saw American military leadership bottom out. The My Lai massacre is held up as the emblematic event of this dark chapter of our history. In the wake of Vietnam, a battle for the soul of the US Army was waged with impressive success. It became a transformed institution, reinvigorated from the bottom up. But if the body was highly toned, its head still suffered from familiar problems, resulting in leadership that, from the first Iraq War through to the present, was tactically savvy but strategically obtuse -- one that would win battles but would end wars badly. Thomas E. Ricks has made a close study of America's military leaders for three decades, and in his hands this story resounds with larger meaning: the transmission of values, strategic thinking, the difference between an organization that learns and one that fails. Military history of the highest quality, The Generals is also essential reading for anyone with an interest in the difference between good leaders and bad ones.

The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today; Library Edition

Review "A fascinating and erudite look at how Greek and Roman writers influenced members of the Founding Generation...[who] looked to the classical world to answer critical questions about the nature of power and the nature of government."-- "Annette Gordon-Reed, the Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History at Harvard Law School and Pulitzer Prize-winning author ""Ricks knocks it out of the park with this jewel of a book. On every page I learned something new. Read it every night if you want to restore your faith in our country."-- "James Mattis, general, US Marines (ret.) and 26th Secretary of Defense""Ricks knows his subject well, and, equally important, he writes about it lucidly."-- "Gordon Wood, professor at Brown University and author of The Radicalism of the American Revolution ""Thomas Ricks's deeply personal, patriotic quest to recover and renew the principles that animated America's founders testifies eloquently to the value of historical understanding in these troubled times. Steeped in the classics, the founders could not have imagined our world and we are now, more than ever, acutely conscious of their failure to engage with the fundamental problem of racial slavery and its enduring legacies. But Ricks offers us a timely reminder of what the first four, nation-making presidents could imagine and did struggle to achieve."-- "Peter S. Onuf, Thomas Jefferson Professor of History, emeritus, University of Virginia, coauthor of Most Blessed of the Patriarchs" Product Description The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and #1 New York Times bestselling author offers a revelatory new book about the founding fathers, examining their educations and, in particular, their devotion to the ancient Greek and Roman classics—and how that influence would shape their ideals and the new American nation. On the morning after the 2016 presidential election, Thomas Ricks awoke with a few questions on his mind: What kind of nation did we now have? Is it what was designed or intended by the nation’s founders? Trying to get as close to the source as he could, Ricks decided to go back and read the philosophy and literature that shaped the founders’ thinking, and the letters they wrote to each other debating these crucial works—among them the Iliad, Plutarch’s Lives, and the works of Xenophon, Epicurus, Aristotle, Cato, and Cicero. For though much attention has been paid the influence of English political philosophers, like John Locke, closer to their own era, the founders were far more immersed in the literature of the ancient world.The first four American presidents came to their classical knowledge differently. Washington absorbed it mainly from the elite culture of his day; Adams from the laws and rhetoric of Rome; Jefferson immersed himself in classical philosophy, especially Epicureanism; and Madison, both a groundbreaking researcher and a deft politician, spent years studying the ancient world like a political scientist. Each of their experiences, and distinctive learning, played an essential role in the formation of the United States. In examining how and what they studied, looking at them in the unusual light of the classical world, Ricks is able to draw arresting and fresh portraits of men we thought we knew.First Principles follows these four members of the Revolutionary generation from their youths to their adult lives, as they grappled with questions of independence, and forming and keeping a new nation. In doing so, Ricks interprets not only the effect of the ancient world on each man, and how that shaped our constitution and government, but offers startling new insights into these legendary leaders. About the Author Thomas E. Ricks, New York Times bestselling author, is an adviser on national security at the New America Foundation, where he participates in its Future of War project. He was previously a fellow at the Center for a New American Security and is a contributing editor of Foreign Poli

First Principles: What Americas Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country

Historical

HarperCollins B and Blackstone Publishing

Review\n"A fascinating and erudite look at how Greek and Roman writers influenced members of the Founding Generation...[who] looked to the classical world to answer critical questions about the nature of power and the nature of government."-- "Annette Gordon-Reed, the Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History at Harvard Law School and Pulitzer Prize-winning author "\n"Ricks knocks it out of the park with this jewel of a book. On every page I learned something new. Read it every night if you want to restore your faith in our country."-- "James Mattis, general, US Marines (ret.) and 26th Secretary of Defense"\n"Ricks knows his subject well, and, equally important, he writes about it lucidly."-- "Gordon Wood, professor at Brown University and author of The Radicalism of the American Revolution "\n"Thomas Ricks's deeply personal, patriotic quest to recover and renew the principles that animated America's founders testifies eloquently to the value of historical understanding in these troubled times. Steeped in the classics, the founders could not have imagined our world and we are now, more than ever, acutely conscious of their failure to engage with the fundamental problem of racial slavery and its enduring legacies. But Ricks offers us a timely reminder of what the first four, nation-making presidents could imagine and did struggle to achieve."-- "Peter S. Onuf, Thomas Jefferson Professor of History, emeritus, University of Virginia, coauthor of Most Blessed of the Patriarchs"\nMP3 CD Format 
The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and #1 New York Times bestselling author offers a revelatory new book about the founding fathers, examining their educations and, in particular, their devotion to the ancient Greek and Roman classics—and how that influence would shape their ideals and the new American nation. On the morning after the 2016 presidential election, Thomas Ricks awoke with a few questions on his mind: What kind of nation did we now have? Is it what was designed or intended by the nation’s founders? Trying to get as close to the source as he could, Ricks decided to go back and read the philosophy and literature that shaped the founders’ thinking, and the letters they wrote to each other debating these crucial works—among them the Iliad, Plutarch’s Lives, and the works of Xenophon, Epicurus, Aristotle, Cato, and Cicero. For though much attention has been paid the influence of English political philosophers, like John Locke, closer to their own era, the founders were far more immersed in the literature of the ancient world. 
The first four American presidents came to their classical knowledge differently. Washington absorbed it mainly from the elite culture of his day; Adams from the laws and rhetoric of Rome; Jefferson immersed himself in classical philosophy, especially Epicureanism; and Madison, both a groundbreaking researcher and a deft politician, spent years studying the ancient world like a political scientist. Each of their experiences, and distinctive learning, played an essential role in the formation of the United States. In examining how and what they studied, looking at them in the unusual light of the classical world, Ricks is able to draw arresting and fresh portraits of men we thought we knew. 
First Principles follows these four members of the Revolutionary generation from their youths to their adult lives, as they grappled with questions of independence, and forming and keeping a new nation. In doing so, Ricks interprets not only the effect of the ancient world on each man, and how that shaped our constitution and government, but offers startling new insights into these legendary leaders.

The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008

Middle East

Penguin Press HC

Il grande fiasco. L'avventura militare americana in Iraq

Longanesi

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Books by Thomas E. Ricks