One of the best military reading lists ever: Direct to you from the Australian army

It's been awhile
since I've seen a reading list this good, and so comprehensive. An education itself. One
thing I especially like about it is that it doesn't just list books, it tells
you why you might want to read each one.

It also has some
very helpful introductory essays. For example, there is this comment on how to
read an official history:

Learn
to read between the lines, particularly the lines of the official histories.
Official historians expect their professional readers to be able to read
between the lines. For example in speaking of Singapore, the War Office history
says, 'Many stragglers were collected in the town and sent back to their
units.'

What
does this statement suggest? In an advance stragglers are to be expected. Men
become detached from their units for quite legitimate reasons. We provide for
them by establishing stragglers' posts to collect them and direct them back
towards their units. But when we get large numbers of stragglers behind a
defensive position, and a long
way back at that, it suggests that units have been broken up or that there has
been a breakdown of discipline somewhere. And that in turn suggests that the
general situation had reached the stage when a lot of people had lost
confidence, when morale was at least beginning to break down.

Also, General Paul
Van Riper's essay on his own professional education is worth an evening all by
itself.