37 Books about military history

The Armada is a popular history by Garrett Mattingly—a historian who taught at Columbia University—about the attempt of the Spanish Armada to invade England in 1588. It was published in 1959 by Houghton Mifflin Company, and Mattingly won a special Pulitzer Prize for the work in 1960 as "a first class history and a literary work of high order."

Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War is a 1999 book by journalist Mark Bowden. It documents efforts by the Unified Task Force to capture Somali faction leader Mohamed Farrah Aidid in 1993, and the resulting battle in Mogadishu between United States forces and Aidid's militia. One of the key events is the downing of two United States UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, from which the book derives its title, and the attempt to rescue their crews. United States forces included Army Rangers, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, 10th Mountain Division, Delta Force and Navy SEALs, with United Nations peacekeeping forces also involved.

British Warships in the Age of Sail is a series of four books by maritime historian Rif Winfield comprising a historical reference work providing details of all recorded ships that served or were intended to serve in the Royal Navy from 1603 to 1863. Similar volumes dealing with other navies during the Age of Sail have followed from the same publisher.

Campaign Chronicles is a non-fiction book series from Pen & Sword publishers that analyses pivotal battles in history and the men and armies that participated in them. The first book in the series was Napoleon's Polish Gamble: Eylau & Friedland by Christopher Summerville, who is also the series editor.

The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan was written by Professor Chunghee Sarah Soh of San Francisco State University. The book delves deeper into the World War II comfort women issue.

Conflict and Conquest in the Islamic World: A Historical Encyclopedia is a two-volume encyclopedia covering the military and political history of Islam, edited by Alexander Mikaberidze and published in 2011.

The Cover-up General is a non-fiction thriller by Dutch author Edwin F. Giltay, first published in 2014. The book describes an espionage scandal he witnessed first-hand, within military intelligence of the Armed forces of the Netherlands. At the root of it all was the infamous film roll of Srebrenica depicting war crimes, which was misdeveloped by a navy photo laboratory.

The Face of Battle is a 1976 non-fiction book on military history by the English military historian John Keegan. It deals first with the structure of historical writing about battles, the strengths and weaknesses of the "battle piece," and then with the structure of warfare in three time periods—medieval Europe, the Napoleonic Era, and World War I—by analyzing three battles: Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme, all of which involved English soldiers and occurred in approximately the same geographical area.

Gettysburg: The Last Invasion is a 2013 military history non-fiction book by American author Allen Guelzo. The book is a comprehensive recounting of the Battle of Gettysburg.

Ghost Stations is a series of books by the British military historian Bruce Barrymore Halpenny, containing ostensibly true ghost and mystery stories generally connected to the RAF, airfields and other military or war connected stories.

A Glorious Way to Die: The Kamikaze Mission of the Battleship Yamato, April 1945 is a 1981 military history book by Russell Spurr about the suicide mission of the Japanese battleship Yamato against the American Pacific Fleet during the Battle of Okinawa near the end of World War II. Yamato was the largest battleship in the world, and Japan sacrificed her in a final, desperate attempt to halt the Allied advance on the Japanese archipelago. The book was published in 1981 in the United States by Newmarket Press, and in the United Kingdom by Sidgwick & Jackson.

The Gun is a nonfiction book written by journalist C. J. Chivers about the AK-47 rifle and its variants, and the impact they have had on the world. It covers the origins of the design, its invention and distribution, and the consequences of the pattern's spread around the world.

The History of the Norman Conquest of England: Its Causes and Its Results is a six-volume study of the Conquest by Edward A. Freeman, published between 1867 and 1879. Recognised by critics as a major work of scholarship on its first publication, it has since proved unpopular with readers, many of whom were put off by its enormous length and copious detail. Academics have often criticized it for its heavily Whig treatment of the subject, and its glorification of Anglo-Saxon political and social institutions at the expense of their feudal successors, but its influence has nevertheless been profound, many Anglo-Norman historians of modern times having come around to some of Freeman's main conclusions.

The History of the Peloponnesian War is a historical account of the Peloponnesian War, which was fought between the Peloponnesian League and the Delian League. It was written by Thucydides, an Athenian historian who also served as an Athenian general during the war. His account of the conflict is widely considered to be a classic and regarded as one of the earliest scholarly works of history. The History is divided into eight books.

A History of Warfare is a book by military historian John Keegan, which was published in 1993 by Random House.

In the Company of Heroes is a book by Michael Durant and Steven Hartov about Durant's experiences in the Battle of Mogadishu, Korea, the Persian Gulf, Thailand, Panama, and Iraq. In the Battle of Mogadishu, the MH-60 Black Hawk helicopter code-named Super Six-Four that Durant was piloting was shot down over Somalia by a rocket-propelled grenade on October 3, 1993, and he was attacked by a mob and had to fight for his life. MSG Gary Gordon and SFC Randy Shughart volunteered to try to protect the pilot from the mob; while Durant was severely injured, he survived, but Gordon and Shughart did not, and were posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for their bravery. Durant became a prisoner of Somali warlord Mohamed Farah Aidid for 11 days.

The Last Battle: When U.S. and German Soldiers Joined Forces in the Waning Hours of World War II in Europe is a book by the historian Stephen Harding which tells the story of the World War II Battle for Castle Itter.

Lee's Lieutenants: A Study in Command is a three-volume work by Douglas Southall Freeman on the generals of the Army of Northern Virginia during the American Civil War.

Lions of Medina is a book written by historian Doyle Glass, first published by Coleche Press on May 1, 2007 and subsequently by NAL Caliber (Penguin) on July 1, 2008. The book is a first hand account of the Marines and Navy Corpsmen of Charlie Company, 1st Marines, 1st Marine Division during the Vietnam War culminating in Operation Medina in October 1967.

Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 (2007) is a non-fiction book written by Marcus Luttrell with assistance from novelist and ghostwriter Patrick Robinson and published by Little, Brown and Company. The narrative takes place in Afghanistan, where the reader follows Marcus Luttrell and a group of U.S. Navy SEALs. It has since seen a 2013 film adaptation of the same name, with Mark Wahlberg starring as Luttrell.

Marching on Tanga is a 1917 non-fiction work by the British writer Francis Brett Young. A war memoir, it recounted his service in the Royal Army Medical Corps during the East African campaign of the First World War. Passages of the book were censored at the time, but later re-used in his novel Jim Redlake. Several of Young's novels were set in German East Africa.

Moscow 1812: Napoleon's Fatal March is a non-fiction book analysing the events and circumstances during the French Invasion of Russia and the events during the reign of Napoleon, which would, ultimately, mark the ending of the Napoleonic empire after his troops were defeated after attempting to access Moscow. The book was written by Adam Zamoyski and first published on August 3, 2004 by HarperCollins; receiving positive reviews by critics and the media.

Never at War: Why Democracies Will Not Fight One Another is a book by the historian and physicist Spencer R. Weart published by Yale University Press in 1998. It examines political and military conflicts throughout human history and finds no exception to one of the claims that is made by the controversial democratic peace theory that well-established liberal democracies have never made war on one another. In addition to the democratic peace, Weart argues that there is also an oligarchic peace and provides a new explanation for both the democratic and oligarchic peace. The book is often mentioned in the academic debate and has received both praise and criticism.

The Official History of Australia's Involvement in Southeast Asian Conflicts 1948–1975 covers Australia's involvement in the Malayan Emergency, Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation and Vietnam War. The series is an official history and was funded by the Australian Government and published by Allen & Unwin in association with the Australian War Memorial. Peter Edwards was appointed the official historian for the series in 1982. The series comprises nine volumes, which were published between 1992 and 2012. A single-volume summary of the series, Australia and the Vietnam War, was published in 2014.

The Official History of Australian Peacekeeping, Humanitarian and Post-Cold War Operations is the official history of Australia's military and civilian involvement in peacekeeping since 1947 as well as military operations in the years after the end of the Cold War. The series is being jointly produced by the Australian War Memorial and Australian National University, with Professor David Horner serving as its general editor. It is planned that the series will comprise six volumes.

The River War: An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan (1899), by Winston Churchill, concerning his experiences as a British Army officer, during the Mahdist War (1881–99) in the Sudan.

Savas Beatie LLC, commonly referred to as simply Savas Beatie or Savas Beatie Publishing, is a California-based book publishing company established in 2004. To date the company has published more than one hundred and twenty (120) military, general history titles. The company uses the tag line "Independent, scholarly, and a bit old fashioned." Savas Beatie titles are distributed into the general book trade by Philadelphia-based Casemate Publishing. Markets outside the general trade, including individual enthusiasts, national and state historic sites, and specialty sales, are managed inside the company.

The Senshi Sōsho , also called the Kōkan Senshi (公刊戦史), is the official military history of Imperial Japan's involvement in the Pacific War from 1937 to 1945. The task of compiling the official account of the Japanese involvement in World War II began in October 1955 with the opening of the War History Office. Its main function was to serve as educational research material for the Self-Defense Forces. The office was led by Colonel Nishiura Susumu, a senior official in the War Ministry during the war. The publisher was Asagumo Shimbunsha.

The Siege of Shkodra is a book written by a Shkodran priest, Marin Barleti, about the Ottoman siege of Shkodra in 1478, led personally by Mehmed II, and about the joint resistance of the Albanians and the Venetians. The book also discusses the Ottoman siege of Shkodra in 1474. The book was originally published in 1504, in Latin, as De obsidione Scodrensi. Barleti was an eyewitness of the events.

The Story of the Malakand Field Force: An Episode of Frontier War was an 1898 book written by Winston Churchill; it was his first published work of non-fiction.

The Surge: A Military History is a military history by Kimberly Kagan about the Iraq War troop surge of 2007. The book describes events in Iraq starting from late 2006, before the surge, to early 2008, focusing on the details of military operations on a week by week basis. It was described as "indispensable guide" to the understanding of American military successes in Iraq by Senator John McCain.

Targeted Killing in International Law is a book about the legality of targeted killing, written by Nils Melzer. It was first published by Oxford University Press in May 2008. The book explores the history of targeted killing as a government strategy by multiple countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, Switzerland and Germany; for both military and law enforcement purposes. Melzer argues that directly after the September 11 attacks in the United States, perceptions of the tactic became more positive.

Targeted Killings: Law and Morality in an Asymmetrical World is a non-fiction compilation book about targeted killing edited by Claire Finkelstein, Jens David Ohlin, and Andrew Altman. It was published by Oxford University Press in 2012. The book grew out of contributions by the authors to a conference in April 2011 at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Targeted Killings features eighteen essays in five sections arranged by topic. The work argues that after the 11 September attacks by Al-Qaeda in 2001, the United States and other countries began to see the tactic of targeted killing differently. The practice of targeted killing had previously been accepted in situations of self-defence in military settings; after 11 September 2001 it was used to kill non-combatants and those not directly involved in a particular armed force.

The Unknown War is a military history book written by Hienadz Sahanovich. It describes the events of the war between Tsardom of Russia and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1654-67. The war has become known as a part of the "Deluge", a series of military conflicts that overwhelmed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the middle of the 17th century which included the Khmelnytsky Uprising, the Swedish invasion, and the Russian invasion among others.

The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World is a treatise on modern warfare written by General Sir Rupert Smith and published in 2005. Smith is a retired general who spent 40 years in the British Army; he commanded the 1st Armoured Division in the First Gulf War and served as General Officer Commanding Northern Ireland at the end of the Troubles. He was motivated to write the book by his experiences in the Balkans. He commanded the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) in Bosnia from 1995 to 1996, during which time the Srebrenica massacre occurred and the capital, Sarajevo, was under siege by Serb forces. Smith was instrumental in the lifting of the siege by arranging for NATO air strikes and an artillery barrage. This enabled a ground assault by Bosnian and Croatian forces that ended the siege and led to the Dayton Agreement. Smith's second involvement with the Balkans was in 1999 during the Kosovo War, when he was serving as NATO's Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe, overseeing air strikes against Serb targets.

White Eagle, Red Star: The Polish–Soviet War, 1919–20 is a 1972 book by Norman Davies covering the Polish–Soviet War. The monograph is Davies's first book.

The Wubei Zhi, also commonly known by its Japanese translated name Bubishi, is the most comprehensive military book in Chinese history. It was compiled in 1621 by Mao Yuanyi, an officer of waterborne troops in the Ming Dynasty. The Wubei Zhi contains 240 volumes, 10405 pages, and more than 200,000 Chinese characters, which makes it the longest book in Chinese history regarding military affairs.