On Memorial Day 2021, a week after the latest cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, and as U.S. troops begin to withdraw from Afghanistan – marking the end of America’s longest military engagement – I reflect on the many wars that have plagued humanity since the beginning of time. From our ancient past to the present, humans have fought each other tooth and nail, and later by blade and bullet, often for the haziest of reasons. Fear of the Other, religious zeal, political revolt, or the acquisition of new territory are often the casus belli.
True, the effects of war are not only devastating. New medicines and technologies arise amidst conflicts, and are later put to good use by the surviving populace. That said, considering the massive tolls of carnage and death wrought by them, it’s disheartening that rumors of wars persist. Today, in the Atomic Age, total human annihilation (not to mention all other species) is only the push of a button away.
How can we stop the madness? How can we pull back from the brink? The best way is to study the history of the subject, so as to thoroughly familiarize ourselves with the antecedents of war. The following is a list of 164 texts on war. Though not exhaustive, this list spans the last few millennia—from antiquity to modernity—and includes fictional and nonfictional examples. Read these texts to learn from the mistakes of the past, and to make for a better future.
I. Primary Sources
Ancient Wars
1. The Iliad (8th c. BCE)
[The Trojan War]
— Homer
2. The Art of War (5th c. BCE)
[Military Treatise]
— Sun Tzu
3. The Trojan Women (415 BCE)
[The Trojan War]
— Euripides
4. History of the Peloponnesian War (Early 4th c. BCE)
[The Peloponnesian War]
— Thucydides
5. Commentarii de Bello Gallico (58—49 BCE)
[The Gallic Wars]
— Julius Caesar, Aulus Hirtius
6. Commentarii de Bello Civili (49—48 BCE)
[Caesar’s Civil War]
— Julius Caesar
7. The Aeneid (29-19 BCE)
[The Trojan War]
— Virgil
Early Modern Wars
8. Romance of the Three Kingdoms (14th c. CE)
[The Yellow Turban Rebellion]
— Luo Guanzhong
9. The Faerie Queene (1590)
[Medieval Battles]
— Edmund Spenser
10. The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha (1605—1615)
[War of the Alpujarras]
— Miguel de Cervantes
11. Henry V (1623)
[Hundred Years’ War]
— William Shakespeare
12. Simplicius Simplicissimus (1668)
[Thirty Years’ War]
— Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen
Modern Wars
13. The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757 (1826)
[The French and Indian War]
— James Fenimore Cooper
14. Vom Kriege (1832)
[The Napoleonic Wars]
— Carl von Clausewitz
15. The Charterhouse of Parma (1839)
[The Battle of Waterloo]
— Stendhal
16. The Luck of Barry Lyndon (1844)
[The Seven Years’ War]
— William Makepeace Thackeray
17. War and Peace (1869)
[Napoleon’s invasion of Russia]
— Leo Tolstoy
18. Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant (1885 and 1886)
[Mexican-American War and American Civil War]
— Ulysses S. Grant
19. La Débâcle (1892)
[Franco-Prussian War]
— Émile Zola
20. The Red Badge of Courage (1895)
[American Civil War]
— Stephen Crane
23. The Rough Riders (1899)
[Spanish-American War]
— Teddy Roosevelt
24. Under Fire: The Story of a Squad (1916)
[World War I]
— Henri Barbusse
25. The Return of the Soldier (1918)
[World War I]
— Rebecca West
26. Ten Days That Shook the World (1919)
[Russian Revolution]
— John Reed
27. Clérambault (1920)
[World War I]
— Romain Rolland
28. Three Soldiers (1921)
[World War I]
— John Dos Passos
29. Life in the Tomb (1923-24)
[World War I]
— Stratis Myrivilis
30. Mrs. Dalloway (1925)
[World War I]
— Virginia Woolf
31. Storm of Steel (1920—1978)
[World War I]
— Ernst Jünger
32. Parade’s End (tetralogy)
• Some Do Not... (1924)
• No More Parades (1925)
• A Man Could Stand Up — (1926)
• Last Post (1928)
[World War I]
— Ford Maddox Ford
33. Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926)
[Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Turks of 1916 to 1918]
— T. E. Lawrence
34. Der Streit in den Sergeanten Grischa (1927)
[World War I]
— Arnold Zweig
35. Death of a Hero (1929)
[World War I]
— Richard Aldington
36. Good-Bye to All That (1929)
[World War I]
— Robert Graves
37. A Farewell to Arms (1929)
[World War I]
— Ernest Hemingway
38. All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)
[World War I]
— Erich Maria Remarque
39. Generals Die in Bed (1930)
[World War I]
— Charles Yale Harrison
40. Journey to the End of the Night (1932)
[World War I]
— Louis-Ferdinand Céline
41. Company K (1933)
[World War I]
— William March
42. Paths of Glory (1935)
[World War I]
— Humphrey Cobb
43. The Trojan War Will Not Take Place (1935)
[The Trojan War]
— Jean Giraudoux
44. Gone with the Wind (1936)
[American Civil War]
— Margaret Mitchell
45. The Unvanquished (1938)
[American Civil War]
— William Faulkner
46. Johnny Got His Gun (1938)
[World War I]
— Dalton Trumbo
47. Three Guineas (1938)
[World War II]
— Virginia Woolf
48. Homage to Catalonia (1938)
[Spanish Civil War]
— George Orwell
49. For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)
[Spanish Civil War]
— Ernest Hemingway
50. Owen Glendower: An Historical Novel (1941)
[The Glyndŵr Rising, or Welsh Revolt]
— John Cowper Powys
51. The Moon Is Down (1942)
[World War II]
— John Steinbeck
52. Put Out More Flags (1942)
[World War II]
— Evelyn Waugh
53. The Ministry of Fear (1943)
[World War II]
— Graham Greene
54. No Direction (1943)
[World War II]
— James Hanley
55. Caught (1943)
[World War II]
— Henry Green
56. Guadalcanal Diary (1943)
[World War II]
— Richard Tregaskis
57. Fair Stood the Wind for France (1944)
[World War II]
— H. E. Bates
58. The Diary of a Young Girl (1944)
[World War II]
— Anne Frank
59. The Reprieve (1945)
[World War II]
— Jean-Paul Sartre
60. Man’s Search for Meaning (1946)
[World War II]
— Viktor Frankl
61. Williwaw (1946)
[World War II]
— Gore Vidal
62. Hiroshima (1946)
[World War II]
— John Hersey
63. If This Is a Man (1947)
[World War II]
— Primo Levi
64. The Naked and the Dead (1948)
[World War II]
— Norman Mailer
65. The Heat of the Day (1948)
[World War II]
— Elizabeth Bowen
66. The Young Lions (1948)
[World War II]
— Irwin Shaw
67. A Russian Journal (1948)
[Cold War Era]
— John Steinbeck
68. Troubled Sleep (1949)
[World War II]
— Jean-Paul Sartre
69. Fires on the Plain (1951)
[World War II]
— Ooka Shohei
70. The Second Scroll (1951)
[World War II]
— A. M. Klein
71. The End of the Affair (1951)
[World War II]
— Graham Greene
72. From Here to Eternity (1951)
[World War II]
— James Jones
73. The Bridge over the River Kwai (1952)
[World War II]
— Pierre Boulle
74. Stalingrad (1952)
[World War II]
— Vasily Grossman
75. Sword of Honor (trilogy)
• Men at Arms (1952)
• Officers and Gentlemen (1955)
• Unconditional Surrender (1961)
[World War II]
— Evelyn Waugh
76. The Unknown Soldier (1954)
[The Continuation War]
— Väinö Linna
77. Andersonville (1955)
[American Civil War]
— MacKinlay Kantor
78. The Quiet American (1955)
[Vietnam War]
— Graham Greene
79. Doctor Zhivago (1957)
[Russian Revolution]
— Boris Pasternak
80. No-No Boy (1957)
[World War II]
— John Okada
81. The Civil War: A Narrative (1958–1974)
• Fort Sumter to Perryville (1958)
• Fredericksburg to Meridian (1961)
• Red River to Appomattox (1974)
[American Civil War]
— Shelby Foote
82. The Tin Drum (1959)
[World War II]
— Günter Grass
83. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (1960)
[World War II]
— William L. Shirer
84. April Morning (1961)
[American Revolution]
— Howard Fast
85. Catch-22 (1961)
[World War II]
— Joseph Heller
86. The Thin Red Line (1962)
[World War II]
— James Jones
87. The Guns of August (1962)
[World War I]
— Barbara W. Tuchman
88. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1967)
[American Revolution]
— Bernard Bailyn
89. MASH: A Novel about Three Army Doctors (1968)
[Korean War]
— Richard Hooker
90. Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)
[World War II]
— Kurt Vonnegut
91. Representation in the American Revolution (1969)
[American Revolution]
— Gordon S. Wood
92. Rich Man, Poor Man (1970)
[Cold War Era]
— Irwin Shaw
93. Gravity’s Rainbow (1973)
[World War II]
— Thomas Pynchon
94. The Killer Angels (1974)
[American Civil War]
— Michael Shaara
95. Born on the Fourth of July (1976)
[Vietnam War]
— Ron Kovic
96. A Rumor of War (1977)
[Vietnam War]
— Philip Caputo
97. Dispatches (1977)
[Vietnam War]
— Michael Herr
98. Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (1977)
[Philosophical Treatise on War]
— Michael Walzer
99. Sophie’s Choice (1979)
[World War II]
— William Styron
100. Life and Fate (1980)
[World War II]
— Vasily Grossman
101. Obasan (1981)
[World War II]
— Joy Kogawa
102. With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa (1981)
[World War II]
— Eugene Sledge
103. If Not Now, When? (1982)
[World War II]
— Primo Levi
104. Empire of the Sun (1984)
[World War II]
— J. G. Ballard
105. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (1988)
[American Civil War]
— James M. McPherson
106. A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (1988)
[Vietnam War]
— Neil Sheehan
107. The Things They Carried (1990)
[Vietnam War]
— Tim O’Brien
108. The Sorrow of War (1990)
[Vietnam War]
— Bảo Ninh
109. Black Dogs (1992)
[Cold War Era]
— Ian McEwan
110. The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1992)
[American Revolution]
— Gordon S. Wood
111. The English Patient (1992)
[World War II]
— Michael Ondaatje
112. Birdsong (1993)
[World War I]
— Sebastian Faulks
113. Regeneration (trilogy)
• Regeneration (1991)
• The Eye in the Door (1993)
• The Ghost Road (1995)
[World War I]
— Pat Barker
114. The Gulf War Did Not Take Place (1995)
[The Gulf War]
— Jean Baudrillard
115. Cold Mountain (1997)
[American Civil War]
— Charles Frazier
116. A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891—1924 (1998)
[Russian Revolution]
— Orlando Figes
117. Stalingrad (1998)
[World War II]
— Antony Beevor
118. Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War (1999)
[Battle of Mogadishu, Somalia]
— Mark Bowden
119. The Name of War: King Phillip’s War and the Origins of American Identity (1999)
[King Philip’s War]
— Jill Lepore
120. On the Natural History of Destruction (1999)
[World War II]
— W. G. Sebald
121. Austerlitz (2001)
[World War II]
— W. G. Sebald
122. Atonement (2001)
[World War II]
— Ian McEwan
123. War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning (2002)
— Chris Hedges
124. Clausewitz and His Works (2002)
— Christopher Bassford
125. “Looking at War” (The New Yorker, 2002)
[Article on war photography]
— Susan Sontag
126. Regarding the Pain of Others (2003)
[Book-length essay on war photography]
— Susan Sontag
127. Jarhead (2003)
[Persian Gulf War]
— Anthony Swofford
128. The Kite Runner (2003)
[The Soviet-Afghan War]
— Khaled Hosseini
129. Incendiary (2005)
[War on Terrorism]
— Chris Cleave
130. 1776 (2005)
[American Revolution]
— David McCullough
131. 1812: The War that Forged a Nation (2004)
[War of 1812]
— Walter R. Borneman
132. The March (2005)
[American Civil War]
— E. L. Doctorow
133. Restless (2006)
[World War II]
— William Boyd
134. The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War (2007)
[Korean War]
— David Halberstam
135. The Forever War (2008)
[2001 War in Afghanistan and Iraq War]
— Dexter Filkins
136. Our Savage Neighbors: How Indian War Transformed Early America (2009)
[Seven Years’ War]
— Peter Silver
137. This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (2009)
[American Civil War]
— Drew Gilpin Faust
138. Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War
(2010)
[Vietnam War]
— Karl Marlantes
139. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption (2010)
[World War II]
— Laura Hillenbrand
140. War (2010)
[War in Afghanistan]
— Sebastian Junger
141. Noureddin, Son of Iran (2011)
[Iran–Iraq War]
— Sayyid Noureddin Afi
142. Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (2012)
[Iraq War]
— Ben Fountain
143. The Barbarous Years:
The Peopling of British North America: The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600—1675 (2012)
[King Philip’s War]
— Bernard Bailyn
144. The Opium War (2012)
[The First Opium War]
— Julia Lovell
145. The Crimean War: A History (2012)
[Crimean War]
— Orlando Figes
146. Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution (2013)
[American Revolution]
— Nathaniel Philbrick
147. 1812: The Navy’s War (2013)
[War of 1812]
— George C Daughan
148. Clausewitz: His Life and Work (2014)
— Donald J. Stoker
149. One Woman’s War: Da (Mother) (2014)
[Iran–Iraq War]
— Seyyedeh Zahra Hosseini
150. All the Light We Cannot See (2014)
[World War II]
— Anthony Doerr
151. The Nightingale (2015)
[World War II]
— Kristin Hannah
152. Valiant Ambition:
George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution (2016)
[American Revolution]
— Nathaniel Philbrick
153. The Alice Network (2017)
[World War I + II]
— Kate Quinn
154. Rebooting Clausewitz: ‘On War’ in the Twenty-first Century (2017)
— Christopher Coker
155. King Philip’s War: The History and Legacy of America’s Forgotten Conflict (2017)
[King Philip’s War]
— Eric B. Schultz
156. In the Hurricane’s Eye:
The Genius of George Washington and the Victory at Yorktown (2018)
[American Revolution]
— Nathaniel Philbrick
157. Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip’s War (2019)
[King Philip’s War]
— Lisa Brooks
158. Memory Lands: King Philip’s War and the Place of Violence in the Northeast (2019)
[King Philip’s War]
— Christine M. DeLucia
159. 1774: The Long Year of Revolution (2020)
[American Revolution]
— Mary Beth Norton
160. The Splendid and the Vile (2021)
[World War II]
— Erik Larson
II. Secondary Sources
161. 100 Decisive Battles: From Ancient Times to the Present (2001)
— Paul K. Davis
162. The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World: From Marathon to Waterloo (2008)
— Edward Shepherd Creasy
163. A History of War in 100 Battles (2014)
— Richard Overy
164. The Cambridge History of Warfare (2020)
— Geoffrey Parker
