The Vietnam War is like the American Civil War in that a lot of really bad books have been written about it. Bergerud’s book is an exception to that rule. By focusing on a single province, he is able to cover both political and the military aspects of the war in detail over a fairly long time horizon. Especially important is his analysis of the historiography of the war. You come away not only knowing who the politicians and soldiers were, but where the writers like Bernard Fall, SLA Marshall, Don Oberdorf, Harry Summers, etc., fit in to all this. Even if you don’t buy Bergerud’s conclusion, (Personally, I agree with David Hackett Fischer that inevitablity is a metaphysical question, not an historical question) you learn an enormous amount about what really happened in an influential province close to Siagon.

This book might be too detailed and analytical for the casual reader, but Vietnam is a complex subject and I don’t think it’s possible to treat it adequately in a simpler framework.

Also anyone who has seen Enemy At The Gates should be required to read William Craig’s book.

Marine: The Life Of Chesty Puller by Burke Davis is another one worth picking up – though I presume any of the biographies on Chesty are worth the time it’d take to read them.

I haven’t had a chance to pick it up but a retired Gunnery Seargent name of Bob Newman wrote a book entitled Guerillas In The Mist. What I’ve heard about it has been favorable enough that it’s on my list.

BTW One painless way your friend can learn military history is by reading the Flashman books. I haven’t read all of them but have liked those that I have. They are of varying quality though (IMHO).

One last suggestion: Frigate Commander by Tom Wareham, tells the story of Lieutenant-later Captain Graham Moore during the Napoleonic Wars. The book takes long passages from Moore’s journal and ties them together with bits of explanatory narrative – a fascinating look at how a Frigate was managed and fought in the age of sail.

By the way, Martin Caidin’s “Black Thursday” is a great, emotion-packed description of the Schweinfort raids in October of 1943 when 8th Air Force losses on long-range missions got so high that combat operations had to be restricted to short-range missions. You’ll feel like you flew the mission after you read this book. This might not still be in print.

For general military history, I also like Russell Weigley, late of U Penn, especially “The American Way of War” and “The Age of Battles.”

Regarding the American Civil War, I am not a big fan of Shelby Foote. He was a novelist with an interest in the war. His prose flow beautifully, but there are lost of errors, and there has been lots of new research in the last 40 years. From a military view point I prefer Herman Hattaway, et al, “How the North Won: A Military History of the Civil War.” For a good first-person account of the war see John Billings “Hardtack and Coffee or the Unwritten Story of Army Life” first published in 1880s and still in print.

I’d also add Correlli Barnett’s The Collapse of British Power, Fraser’s first Flashman, CS Forester’s The Ship, The General and The Good Shepherd (all of which I liked better than the Hornblower series), A.Beevor’s Stalingrad, James Webb’s Fields of Fire, Hanson’s Ripples of Battle, R. Atkinson’s Thin Grey Line, R. Tinberg’s Nightingale’s Song, Ed Kugler’s Dead Center, Frank Nunnely’s (sp?) Tales of Japanese Soldiers (not sure if that’s the exact title). Also Horne wrote an interesting book about Verdun, the name of which escapes me at the moment.
And then there’s the WWII submarine genre. Lots of good ones there, but can’t remember most of their names now except for O’kane’s Take Her Deep.

Carnage and Culture – Victor Davis Hanson

The Franco-Prussian War – Geoffrey Wawro

Strange Defeat – Marc Bloch

A few comments.

Sanity Inspector: Have not read Marcinko, and never heard of Tout’s “A Night for Tanks” or Fiennes “The Feather Men”. Will look into both
David Foster: Horne’s “To Lose a Battle” has been on my shelf for years. Never read it cover to cover. I once showed my kids the picture of the French generals, who look old and tired and not very tough, then showed them the Germans, especially Kliest, who even in full dress uniform looks like a Renaissance swordsman, a stone killer. I said, “just looking at these pictures, who do you think won the war.” They guessed right. Spears I have had on my list. Some day. Don’t know the Beaufre, or the Chamberlain Memoir (you remembered the name correctly). I’ll add them to my list.
MM. Agreed re Grant’s Memoirs. Have not yet gotten to Foote’s mighty 3 Vol opus. Some day. Am aware of O’Brien, but don’t usually read fiction.
TigerHawk: Keegan’s “Face of Battle” I first read when I was 13 years old. The Cornelius Ryan books I read as a kid as well — His “The Last Battle” is also very good. Oren, “Six Days of War” Morison “The Two Ocean War” I have on my shelf. I have a three-volumes-in-one by Catton of something, but haven’t read it yet.
David Tufte: I read and enjoyed “Price of Admiralty”. Never heard of MacIntyre’s “Thunder of the Guns”. I have picked at Hastings’ “Battle for the Falklands”. The two volume official history was just published, I noticed. “Battle Cry of Freedom” is excellent, agreed. I will look into the Banks Atlas. Thanks for the tip.
Dan McCuen: The Forrester and Herzog books are on my list. Disagree strongly about von Luck, which I thought was a great read, with a lot of personal detail. I have read von Mellenthin. I did not think it was a good book for a person without a pretty strong background in reading military history, hence it did not make the cut. I have heard more good than bad things about “An Army at Dawn”, so your vote against is not dispositive. I have a couple of Ambrose’s books on World War II that I picked up in discount bins or yard sales. Haven’t gotten to them. I like his biographies of Nixon and Eisenhower.
Dearieme: Never heard of either. As to Poppycock, are you familiar with Paddy Griffith’s books on the performance of the British Army in World War I?
Tom: The one volume history I liked best was Weinberg’s “A World at Arms”. Have never read any Len Deighton.
Tyouth; “A Rumor of War” is on my shelf. I will add “War of the Rats” to my list. I presume you saw “Enemy at the Gates”? A pretty good movie about the snipers in Stalingrad.
Mace: Don’t know Frank’s “Guadacanal”. Thanks for the tip.
CPT Kauffman: Thanks for weighing in. I can see your position about Hackworth. I understand that he is controversial. I have not, however, seen anyone suggest that the things he describes in his books are not true. Also, his vendettas are out in the open, so you can take as much of them as you want. But we can agree to disagree on that suggestion. Not familiar with Moser’s “Blitzkreig Myth”, and will avoid. I recently got Doughty’s “Breakout: Sedan and the Fall of France in 1940″ — and it was damned expensive! I hope to read that soon. Had not heard of Frieser’s “Blitzkrieg Legend”, so thanks for that suggestion.
David Sundseth: Agreed that Farwell’s books are good and a good read. I have read a couple of them.
Ian: Thanks for the tips on Canadian War of 1812 books. Corbett is supposed to be good. His book “Principles of Maritime Strategy” is supposed to still be good 100 years later.

Donald Graves’ Field of Glory and Where Right and Glory Lead tell the stories of the Battles of Chyrsler’s Farm and the Niagara campaign of 1814 respectively. Both are well researched, extensively noted and written in a simple easy-to-read style.

A Wampum Denied by Sandy Antal describes the British effort around Detroit and Amherstburg and the actions fought by Proctor (a man thoroughly unfit for that command) and Tecumseh.
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On a slightly different note allow me to suggest The Campaign of Trafalgar by Sir Julian S. Corbett, it’s not really “good” history as Corbett is hopelessly biased but it is an amusing read that gets most of the fighting/shipboard things right (and it includes really nice charts of several different actions).

Books I don’t recommend from the list… Primarily Hackworth’s book About Face, at least taken at face value. The reason Hackworth left the Army was due to an investigation of command sponsored (and profiteering from) brothels and drug abuse. He fled justice, a disgraced officer, and moved to Australia. He certainly displayed his personal courage on the battlefield, but that does not make him a great captain. He undermined good order and discipline with his sanctioning of actions contrary to military regulation (there are times and places for that, however). He was a self-aggrandizer of the highest order. He used his book to throw stones at his peers and superiors that he did not like. Compare him to the humble Dick Winters, as accurately portrayed in Band of Brothers, and you can see the difference.

This article in Slate lays it out:

http://www.slate.com/id/2381/sidebar/51012/

Other books not to read:

The Blitzkrieg Myth : How Hitler and the Allies Misread the Strategic Realities of World War II, by John Moser.

This book is terrible, from a historian’s perspective. It is undocumented, and ignores the best writers of the history and development of German Combined Arms doctrine developed during the interwar period. He attempts to cast himself as a first among authors to figure this out, when in fact he is way overmatched by historians such as COL Robert Doughty (Breakout: Sedan and the Fall of France in 1940), or Karl-Heinz Frieser (Blitzkrieg Legend: The 1940 Campaign in the West 2005 translation). If one really wants to understand why the Germans were so successful (and the French were not) initially in WWII, one has to discard the term Blitzkrieg and start from scratch. Doughty’s and Frieser’s books will help you do this.

Although War of The Rats (David Robbins) main subject is USSR snipers in 1942 Stalingrad one gets a very strong sense of the battle and (in less detail) Russia’s follow up, eventually, into Berlin.

As an entry-type work, Robert Leckie’s Delivered from Evil is about as good a readable one-volume history of the Second World War as you could ask for, though it looks significantly more initimdating than it is. For the person who recommened “Blunder” generically, Blitzkrieg by the British novelist Len Deighton able pokes apart some of the Anglo myths of the early days of World War II.