The 2019 Navy Reading List + 5 options for ordering books for your command
The Navy War College just published their 2019 Navy reading list last month. Coming in at 145 books it is the longest reading of all the four services. If you don’t think you can get through all 145 books before the next list comes out I’m taking suggestions for a shorter top 10 list. Please leave comments below.
The most direct option for ordering the Navy Reading list, ordering from the Naval War College, is no longer available. Previously the War College had funding to send commands a full set of the Navy Reading List; however that funding expired a few years ago. Until the Navy prioritizes this funding, commands remain responsible for acquiring the Navy Reading List on their own
For those interested in ordering the Navy Reading List for their command, Wardroom, Chiefs Mess or MWR below are four options to make your supply officers job just a little bit easier, and your command just a little bit smarter:
- Operation Paper Back: While Operations Paper Back does attempt to supply books on the Navy Reading List, they rely on book donations for their distribution. This makes is very hard to “special request” specific books. However, as stated on the Operation Paper Back’s website they will attempt to fulfill an order of books from the Navy’s reading list. The form for requesting books can be found here.
- DOD Reads: Our primary customer is the Department of Defense. We make it very easy for your supply officer make a purchase of the Army’s, Navy’s, USMC’s, USCG’s, and or FBI’s official reading list. DOD Reads can process online purchases, quotes, and for larger purchases we accept payments through Contracting/SAM. We are veteran owned and operated with a percent of our profits going back to the Navy and Marine Corps Relief Society.
- Amazon: While Amazon holds the largest inventory of books around they only hold ready access to approx 110 books on the Navy’s reading list. The remainder of the books are either out of print or fulfilled by other vendors. If you do choose to purchase from Amazon please consider purchasing through my Navy Reading List page, I have conveniently included links for all the books and will receive a small affiliate commission to help run this website.
- Naval War College: As of this writing the Navy War College no longer has a contract to supply the Navy reading list. But if/when this changes they can be contacted via phone or e-mail here.
- US Naval Institute: The USNI has a number of Navy specific reading lists to include a Junior Officer reading list, Commanders reading list and publish a monthly professional naval magazine Proceedings.
- And as a bonus option for Marine Corps Commands, The Marine Corps Association has a Unit Library program which will Marine Corps units with select books from the USMC reading list.
Below is the 2019 Navy Reading List taken from the CNO’s Reading Program
The Canon
- The Federalist Papers, by Alexander Hamilton
- Masters of War: Classical Strategic Thought, by Michael I. Handel
- Strategy: The Classic Book on Military Strategy, by B. H. Liddell Hart
- Military Strategy: A General Theory of Power Control, by J. C. Wylie
- The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War, by Robert B. Strassler
- The U.S. Constitution, by James Madison
- The Declaration of Independence, by Thomas Jefferson
- The Influence of Sea Power on History, by A. T. Mahan
- Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, by Peter Paret
- Principles of Maritime Strategy, by Julian S. Corbett
- The Art of War, by Sun Tzu
- On War, by Carl Von Clausewitz
Partner Network
- Safe Passage, by Kori Schake
- World In Disarray, by Richard Haass
- Asia’s Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific, by Robert D. Kaplan
- The Paradox of American Power, Why the World’s Only Superpower Can’t Go it Alone, by Joseph S. Nye Jr.
- On China, by Henry Kissinger
- Partnerships for the Americas, by James G. Stavridis
- World Order, by Henry Kissinger
- The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate, by Robert D. Kaplan
- The Grand Chessboard, by Zbigniew Brzezinski
- Value: The Four Cornerstones of Corporate Finance, by Tim Koller, Richard Dobbs, Bill Huyett
Navy Team
- Humility is the New Smart, by Edward Hess
- Service: A Navy SEAL at War, by Marcus Luttrell and James D. Hornfischer
- The Accidental Admiral, A Sailor Takes Command at NATO, by James Stavridis
- Teams of Teams, New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World, by Stanley McChrystal
- Navigating the Seven Seas, by Melvin G. Williams
- Start With Why, How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, by Simon Sinek
- One Hundred Days: The Memoirs of the Falklands Battle Group Commander, by Sandy Woodward and Patrick Robinson
- Leaders Eat Last, Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t, by Simon Sinek
- A Vietnam Experience, Ten Years of Reflection, by James B. Stockdale
- Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot, by Jim Stockdale
- The Caine Mutiny, by Herman Wouk
- In Love and War, by Jim and Sybil Stockdale
- Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging, by Sebastian Junger
- At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends, by Dwight D. Eisenhower
- Enchiridion, by Epictetus
- Grant: Personal Memoirs and Selected Letters of Ulysses S. Grant, by Ulysses S. Grant
- His Excellency, George Washington, by Joseph J. Ellis
- Other Clay: A Remembrance of the World War II Infantry, by Charles R. Cawthon
- Crusade in Europe: A Personal Account of World War II, by Dwight D. Eisenhower
- The Last Warrior, by Andrew F. Krepinevich and Barry D. Watts
- The Wisdom of Crowds, by James Surowiecki
Naval Power
- Fleet Tactics, by Wayne Hughes and Robert Girrier
- Neptune’s Inferno, by James D. Hornfischer
- Scales on War: The Future of America’s Military at Risk, by Maj. Gen Bob Scales
- On Grand Strategy, by John Gaddis
- Sea Power, by Admiral James Stavridis
- 1812: The Navy’s War, by George C. Daughan
- Toward a New Maritime Strategy, by Peter D. Haynes
- The Rules of the Game, by Andrew Gordon
- Seapower, A Guide for the 21st Century, by Geoffrey Till
- Red Star over the Pacific, by Toshi Yoshihara and James R. Holmes
- The Conquering Tide, by Ian W. Toll
- Execute Against Japan, The U.S. Decision to Conduct Unrestricted Submarine Warfare, by Joel Ira Holwitt
- John Barry, An American Hero in the Age of Sail, by Tim McGrath
- Pacific Crucible, War at Sea in the Pacific 1941-1942, by Ian W. Toll
- Six Frigates, by Ian W. Toll
- Empires of the Sea, by Roger Crowley
- The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, by James D. Hornfischer
- Ship of Ghosts, by James D. Hornfischer
- The Fleet at Flood Tide, by James D. Hornfischer
- Shattered Sword, The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway, by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully
- Master and Commander, by Patrick O’Brian
- The Rickover Effect, The Inside Story of How Adm. Hyman Rickover Built the Nuclear Navy, by Theodore Rockwell
- Rickover and the Nuclear Navy, The Discipline of Technology, by Francis Duncan
- The Two-Ocean War, A Short History of the U.S. Navy in the Second World War, by Samuel Eliot Morison
- Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat, by Wayne P. Hughes Jr.
- The Face of Battle, by John Keegan
- The Price of Admiralty, by John Keegan
- The Mask of Command, by John Keegan
- Military Readiness: Concepts, Choices, Consequences, by Richard K. Betts
- Military Innovation in the Interwar Period, by Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millett
- All the Factors of Victory, by Thomas Wildenberg
- Matterhorn, A Novel of the Vietnam War, by Karl Marlantes
- Ghost Fleet, by P.W. Singer and August Cole
- Hold Back the Night, by Pat Frank
- Utmost Savagery, The Three Days of Tarawa, by Joseph H. Alexander
- Fighting Talk: Forty Maxims on War, Peace, and Strategy, by Colin S. Gray
- The Admirals, by Walter Borneman
- Yellow Smoke: The Future of Land Warfare for America’s Military, by Robert H. Scales
- England in the Seven Years’ War: A Study in Combined Strategy, by Julian S. Corbett
- The Global Seven Years War 1754 – 1763, by Daniel A. Baugh
- Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in the World War II, by Arthur Herman
- Joe Rochefort’s War: The Odyssey of the Codebreaker Who Outwitted Yamamoto at Midway, by Elliot Carlson
- Pursuit of Victory: The Life and Achievement of Horatio Nelson, by Roger Knight
- Washington’s Crossing, by David Hackett Fischer
- Technology and War: From 2000 B.C. to the Present, by Martin Van Creveld
- Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century, by P. W. Singer
- First to Fight: An Inside View of the U.S. Marine Corps, by Victor H. Krulak
- Chesty, by Jon T. Hoffman
- Marines of Montford Point: America’s First Black Marines, by Melton Alonza McLaurin
- Forgotten Warriors, by Thomas Hammes
- American Spartans: A Combat History from Iwo to Iraq, by James Warren
- Brute: The Life of Victor Krulak, by Robert Coram
High Velocity Outcomes
- Learning War, by Alexander Hamilton
- The Book of Why, by Judea Pear and Dana Mackenzie
- Machine Platform Crowd, by Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson
- Democracy, by Condoleezza Rice
- Simulating War, Studying Conflict Through Simulation Games, by Philip Sabin
- Strategy, A History, by Lawrence Freedman
- Managing the Risks of Organizational Accidents, by James Reason
- Managing the Unexpected: Resilient Performance in an Age of Uncertainty, by Karl E. Weick and Kathleen M. Sutcliffe
- The Heart of Change: Real-life Stories of How People Change their Organizations, by John P. Kotter
- Leading Change, by John P. Kotter
- Blackett’s War: The Men Who Defeated the Nazi U-Boats and Brought Science to the Art of Warfare, by Stephen Budiansky
- The Fall of the Roman Empire, by Peter Heather
- Grand Strategies in War and Peace, by Paul Kennedy
- The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economic Bigger, by Marc Levinson
- On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction, by William Zinsser
- The Innovator’s Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business, by Clayton M. Christensen
- High-Velocity Edge: How Market Leaders Leverage Operational Excellence, by Steven J. Spear
- The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, by Atul Gawande
- The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There are No Easy Answers, by Ben Horowitz
- A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, by Daniel H. Pink
- Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days, by Jake Knapp
- The Making of the Atom Bomb, by Richard Rhodes
- Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction, by Philip E. Tetlock and Dan Gardner
- The Knowing Doing Gap, by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton
- The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, by Edward R. Tufte
- Sensemaking in Organizations, by Karl E. Weick
- The Art of the Long View: Planning in an Uncertain Future, by Peter Schwartz
- The Elements of Style, by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White
- Inviting Disaster: Lessons from the Edge of Technology, by James R. Chiles
- 7 Deadly Scenarios: A Military Futurist Explores War in the 21st Century, by Andew F. Krepinevich
- Envisioning Information, by Edward R. Tufte
- Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan
- The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, by Peter M. Senge
- The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies, by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee
- Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman
- Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision Makers, by Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May
- The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell
- The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, by Malcolm Gladwell
- Drift into Failure: From Hunting Broken Components to Understanding Complex Systems, by Sidney Dekker
- The Field Guide to Understanding ‘Human Error’, by Sidney Dekker
- Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, by Steven D. Levitt
- The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, by Ray Kurzweil
- Red Team: How to Succeed by Thinking Like the Enemy, by Micah Zenko
Core Attributes
- Warriors and Citizens, by Kori Schake & Jim Mattis
- Make Your Bed, by Admiral William H. McRaven
- The Anatomy of Courage, by Lord Moran
- Giving Voice to Values, by Mary C. Gentile
- Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius
- The 7 Signs of Ethical Collapse, by Marianne M. Jennings
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