The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today
Oct 2012 · Sold by Penguin
4.4star
16 reviews
Ebook
576
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About this ebook
A New York Times bestseller!
An epic history of the decline of American military leadership—from the bestselling author of Fiasco and Churchill and Orwell.
While history has been kind to the American generals of World War II—Marshall, Eisenhower, Patton, and Bradley—it has been less kind to the generals of the wars that followed, such as Koster, Franks, Sanchez, and Petraeus. In The Generals, Thomas E. Ricks sets out to explain why that is. In chronicling the widening gulf between performance and accountability among the top brass of the U.S. military, Ricks tells the stories of great leaders and suspect ones, generals who rose to the occasion and generals who failed themselves and their soldiers. In Ricks’s hands, this story resounds with larger meaning: about the transmission of values, about strategic thinking, and about the difference between an organization that learns and one that fails.
An epic history of the decline of American military leadership—from the bestselling author of Fiasco and Churchill and Orwell.
While history has been kind to the American generals of World War II—Marshall, Eisenhower, Patton, and Bradley—it has been less kind to the generals of the wars that followed, such as Koster, Franks, Sanchez, and Petraeus. In The Generals, Thomas E. Ricks sets out to explain why that is. In chronicling the widening gulf between performance and accountability among the top brass of the U.S. military, Ricks tells the stories of great leaders and suspect ones, generals who rose to the occasion and generals who failed themselves and their soldiers. In Ricks’s hands, this story resounds with larger meaning: about the transmission of values, about strategic thinking, and about the difference between an organization that learns and one that fails.
Ratings and reviews
4.4
16 reviews
A Google user
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July 15, 2014
Mr. Ricks articulates the failures of generalship and the institutional failures of the Army. Officers must read this book and acutely adopt its message for the benefit of the service. Political leaders need to understand their place as the leaders of responsible policy and direction. This book will illuminate readers to achieve both of those messages.
1 person found this review helpful
Anil Das
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May 8, 2022
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About the author
Thomas E. Ricks 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 Policymagazine, for which he writes the prizewinning blog The Best Defense. A member of two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams, he covered U.S. military activities in Somalia, Haiti, Korea, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Kuwait, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Iraq. He is the author of several books, including The Generals, The Gamble, and the number one New York Times bestseller Fiasco, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His newest book, Churchill and Orwell: The Fight For Freedom, is a New York Times bestseller.
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