US Navy 2018 Reading List – the Military’s longest reading list to date

Either Navy deployments are getting longer or they must think you have a lot of extra time on your hands.

A few weeks ago the Navy posted the 2018 CNO’s professional reading list. With a whopping 166 books this is the longest reading list to date which beats the Army’s reading list by 33 books.

To keep poor ENS W.T. Door from sorting through all 166 of these books I broke down the list into the Navy’s top 12. Two from each section.

Top 12 books in The CNO’s 2018  Reading List:

• The U.S. Constitution, by James Madison
• The Art of War, by Sun Tzu
• Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius
• Make Your Bed, by Admiral William H. McRaven
• World Order, by Henry Kissinger
• Partnerships for the Americas, by James G. Stavridis
• Start With Why, How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, by Simon Sinek
• Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot, by Jim Stockdale
• Ghost Fleet, by P.W. Singer and August Cole
• 1812: The Navy’s War, by George C. Daughan
• The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economic Bigger, by Marc Levinson
• Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, by Steven D. Levitt

If you are able to get through the first 12 or are getting ready for that long 8 month deployment below is the entire 2018 Reading List.

The Cannon

• The Declaration of Independence, by Thomas Jefferson
• Principles of Maritime Strategy, by Julian S. Corbett
• 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
• Masters of War: Classical Strategic Thought, by Michael I. Handel
• The Influence of Sea Power on History, by A. T. Mahan
• On War, by Carl Von Clausewitz
• Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, by Peter Paret
• The Art of War, by Sun Tzu
• The Federalist Papers, by Alexander Hamilton

 

Core Attributes

• The Anatomy of Courage, by Lord Moran
• Giving Voice to Values, by Mary C. Gentile
• Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius
• Make Your Bed, by Admiral William H. McRaven
• Warriors and Citizens, by Kori Schake & Jim Mattis
• The 7 Signs of Ethical Collapse, by Marianne M. Jennings

 

Partner Network

• A World In Disarray by, Richard Haass
• Asia’s Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific, by Robert D. Kaplan
• World Order, by Henry Kissinger
• Partnerships for the Americas, by James G. Stavridis
• The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate, 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
• The Grand Chessboard, by Zbigniew Brzezinski
• Value: The Four Cornerstones of Corporate Finance by Tim Koller, Richard Dobbs, Bill Huyett
• Safe Passage by Kori Schake

 

Navy Team

• Grant: Personal Memoirs and Selected Letters of Ulysses S. Grant, by Ulysses S. Grant
• In Love and War, by Jim and Sybil Stockdale
• Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot, by Jim Stockdale
• A Vietnam Experience, Ten Years of Reflection, by James B. Stockdale
• Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging, by Sebastian Junger
• Leaders Eat Last, Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t, by Simon Sinek
• At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends, by Dwight D. Eisenhower
• One Hundred Days: The Memoirs of the Falklands Battle Group Commander, by Sandy Woodward and Patrick Robinson
• Start With Why, How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, by Simon Sinek
• Enchiridion, by Epictetus
• The Caine Mutiny, by Herman Wouk
• Navigating the Seven Seas, by Melvin G. Williams
• His Excellency, George Washington, by Joseph J. Ellis
• Other Clay: A Remembrance of the World War II Infantry, by Charles R. Cawthon
• Teams of Teams, New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World, by Stanley McChrystal
• The Accidental Admiral, A Sailor Takes Command at NATO, by James Stavridis
• Crusade in Europe: A Personal Account of World War II, by Dwight D. Eisenhower
• Service: A Navy SEAL at War, by Marcus Luttrell and James D. Hornfischer
• The Wisdom of Crowds, by James Surowiecki
• Humility is the New Smart, by Edward Hess
• The Last Warrior, by Andrew F. Krepinevich and Barry D. Watts

 

Naval Power

• All the Factors of Victory, by Thomas Wildenberg
• Brute: The Life of Victor Krulak, by Robert Coram
• Forgotten Warriors, by Thomas Hammes
• Marines of Montford Point: America’s First Black Marines, by Melton Alonza McLaurin
• 1812: The Navy’s War, by George C. Daughan
• On Grand Strategy, by John Gaddis
• Toward a New Maritime Strategy, by Peter D. Haynes
• Matterhorn, A Novel of the Vietnam War, by Karl Marlantes
• Ghost Fleet, by P.W. Singer and August Cole
• 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
• 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
• Chesty, by Jon T. Hoffman
• The Admirals, by Walter Borneman
• 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
• Yellow Smoke: The Future of Land Warfare for America’s Military, by Robert H. Scales
• Scales on War: The Future of America’s Military at Risk, by Maj. Gen Bob Scales
• Ship of Ghosts, by James D. Hornfischer
• The Fleet at Flood Tide, by James D. Hornfischer
• Neptune’s Inferno, by James D. Hornfischer
• Shattered Sword, The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway, by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully
• England in the Seven Years’ War: A Study in Combined Strategy, by Julian S. Corbett
• Master and Commander, by Patrick O’Brian
• First to Fight: An Inside View of the U.S. Marine Corps, by Victor H. Krulak
• Sea Power, by Admiral James Stavridis
• The Rickover Effect, The Inside Story of How Adm. Hyman Rickover Built the Nuclear Navy, by Theodore Rockwell
• The Global Seven Years War 1754 – 1763, by Daniel A. Baugh
• 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.
• American Spartans: A Combat History from Iwo to Iraq, by James Warren
• 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
• Wired For War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21sr Century, by P. W. Singer
• Technology and War: From 2000 B.C. to the Present, by Martin Van Creveld
• Washington’s Crossing, by David Hackett Fischer
• Pursuit of Victory: The Life and Achievement of Horatio Nelson, by Roger Knight
• Joe Rochefort’s War: The Odyssey of the Codebreaker Who Outwitted Yamamoto at Midway, by Elliot Carlson
• Military Innovation in the Interwar Period, by Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millett
• Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in the World War II, by Arthur Herman

 

High Velocity Outcomes

• On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction, by William Zinsser
• The Making of the Atom Bomb, by Richard Rhodes
• A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, by Daniel H. Pink
• Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction, by Philip E. Tetlock and Dan Gardner
• The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There are No Easy Answers, by Ben Horowitz
• The Knowing Doing Gap, by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton
• The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, by Atul Gawande
• 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
• High-Velocity Edge: How Market Leaders Leverage Operational Excellence, by Steven J. Spear
• 7 Deadly Scenarios: A Military Futurist Explores War in the 21st Century, by Andew F. Krepinevic
• Envisioning Information, by Edward R. Tufte
• Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan
• The Innovator’s Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business, by Clayton M. Christensen
• 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
• Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days, by Jake Knapp
• Democracy, by Condoleezza Rice
• 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
• The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economic Bigger, by Marc Levinson
• Grand Strategies in War and Peace, by Paul Kennedy
• The Fall of the Roman Empire, by Peter Heather
• Simulating War, Studying Conflict Through Simulation Games, by Philip Sabin
• Blackett’s War: The Men Who Defeated the Nazi U-Boats and Brought Science to the Art of Warfare, by Stephen Budiansky
• Leading Change, by John P. Kotter
• The Heart of Change: Real-life Stories of How People Change their Organizations, by John P. Kotter
• 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
• Machine Platform Crowd, by Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson