Professor Harold Rood’s Reading List

CSD
February 20, 2021

Professor Harold W. (Bill) Rood (1922-2011) taught courses in International Relations, Diplomacy and Military Power, American Foreign Policy, Constitutional development in the West, and Politics and Technology, at Claremont McKenna (Men’s) College and Claremont Graduate School (now University), and in the Defense and Strategic Studies programs at the University of Southern California and Missouri State University. He served on the staff and faculty of the Sixth Army Intelligence School, Fort Ord and Fort MacArthur, California (1958-1964; 1968-1974). He grew up at the Mare Island Naval Yard in California, and entered the Army Enlisted Reserve Corps in September 1942 (called to active duty in March 1943). Later, Rood served as a heavy machine gunner and a radio operator in Patton’s Third Army, in the European Theater of Operations. After World War II, he attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he wrote his dissertation on American preparations for war from 1918 to 1940. When the Korean War broke out, he became an order of battle specialist and then a strategic intelligence analyst in the Army Reserve.

He influenced generations of students with his distinctive teachings on war and politics, which relied heavily on the study of historical literature, what we here at CSD terms Notable Books and Documents. The following is his recommended reading list.

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  • Adcock, Sir Frank. The Greek and Macedonian Art of War. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957.
  • Adcock, Sir Frank. The Roman Art of War under the Republic. Rev. ed. Cambridge: Heffer, 1940.
  • Allen, J.W. Germany and Europe. 2nd ed. London: G. Bell & Sons Ltd., 1915. First published 1914.
  • Anderson, M.S. The Eastern Question: 1774-1923, A Study in International Relations. Houndmills, UK: Macmillian, 1991. First published 1966.
  • Angell, Norman. The Great Illusion: A Study of the Relation of Military Power to National Advantage. Auckland, NZ: The Floating Press, 2014. First published 1909.
  • Baldwin, Ralph B. The Deadly Fuze: The Secret Weapon of World War II. San Rafael, CA: Presidio Press, 1980.
  • Barnett, Corelli. The Sword Bearers: Supreme Command in the First World War. London: Cassell, 2000. First published 1963.
  • Barraclough, Geoffrey. The Origins of Modern Germany. 3rd rev. ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 1988. First published 1946.
  • Baxter, J.P., III. Scientists against Time. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1968.
  • Bernhardi, Friedrich von. Germany and the Next War. Charleston, SC: Bibliobazaar, 2006. First published 1912.
  • Braisted, William Reynolds. The United States Navy in the Pacific, 1897-1909. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2008.
  • Browning, Reed. The War of the Austrian Succession. Palgrave Macmillan, 1995.
  • Bywater, Hector C. Sea-Power in the Pacific: A Study of the American-Japanese Naval Problem. Applewood Books, 2002. First published 1921.
  • Caesar, Julius. The Gallic War. Translated by Carolyn Hammond. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
  • Cantrell, Robert. Understanding Sun Tzu on the Art of War.  Arlington, VA: Center for Advantage, 2003.
  • Carter, Kit C., and Robert Mueller. The Army Air Forces in World War II: Combat Chronology, 1941-1945. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973.
  • Chandler, David. The Campaigns of Napoleon. New York: Scribner, 1973.
  • Charteris, John. At G.H.Q. London: Cassell & Co., 1931.
  • Churchill, Winston S. The River War. NuVision Publications, 2007. First published 1899.
  • Churchill, Winston S. The Second World War. 6 vols. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1948-1953.
  • Churchill, Winston W. The World Crisis. Rev. and abr. ed. New York: Free Press, 2005.
  • Clausewitz, Carl von. On War. Translated by Michael Eliot Howard and Peter Paret. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989. First published 1832.
  • Cole, David Henry. Imperial Military Geography: General Characteristics of the Empire in Relation to Defence. 12th ed. London: S. Praed, 1956. First published 1930.
  • Colville, H. E. Official History of the Sudan Campaign: Compiled in the Intelligence Division of the War Office. Uckfield, UK:Naval and Military Press Ltd., 2005.  First published 1890.
  • Dalline, David J. Russia and Postwar Europe. 5th ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1948. First published 1943.
  • Duff, Mountstuart E. Grant. Studies in European Politics. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2007. First published 1866.
  • Elliott, James Gordon. The Frontier 1839-1947: The Story of the North-West Frontier of India. London: Cassell, 1968.
  • Ferguson, Bernard. The Watery Maze. London: Collins, 1961.
  • Fischer, Fritz. From Kaiserreich to Third Reich: Elements of Continuity in German History, 1871-1945. Translated by Rodger Fletcher. New York: Routledge, 1991. First published 1986.
  • Fischer, Fritz. Germany’s Aims in the First World War. London: Chatto & Windus, 1967.
  • Fischer, Fritz. War of Illusions: German Policies from 1911 to 1914. Translated by Marian Jackson. London: Chatto & Windus, 1975.
  • Fischer, Fritz. World Power or Decline: The Controversy Over Germany’s Aims in the First World War. Translated by Lancelot L. Farraar, Robert Kimber, and Rita Kimber. New York: W.W. Norton, 1974.
  • Fisher, David E. A Race on the Edge of Time: Radar – The Decisive Weapon of World War II. New York: Paragon House Publishers, 1989.
  • Forester, C.S. Brown on Resolution. Bath, UK: Chivers Press, 1999. First published 1929.
  • Forester, C.S. The Good Shepherd. Safety Harbor, FL: Simon Publications, 2001. First published 1955.
  • Fraser-Tytler, William K. Afghanistan: A Study of Political Developments in Central and Southern Asia. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1958.
  • Freeman, Roger A., Alan Crouchman, and Vic Maslen. The Mighty Eighth War Diary.  Osceola, WI: Motorbooks International, 1990.
  • Frost, Holloway Halstead. The Conduct of an Overseas Naval Campaign. Washington, DC: G.P.O, 1920.
  • Fuller, J.F.C. Julius Caesar: Man, Soldier, and Tyrant. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1965.
  • Fullerton, William M. Problems of Power: A Study of International Politics from Sadowa to Kirk-Kilisse. Hesperides Press, 2006. First published 1913.
  • Gathorne-Hardy, G.M. A Short History of International Affairs, 1920 to 1939. 4th rev. ed. London: Oxford University Press, 1964. First published 1934.   
  • Gibbs, N.H. Grand Strategy. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1976.
  • Gilbert, Martin. First World War Atlas. 2nd ed. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1985. First published 1970.
  • Gilbert, Martin. Prophet of Truth, 1922-1939. Vol. 5 of Winston S. Churchill. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977.
  • Graham, C.A.B. The History of the Indian Mountain Artillery. Aldershot, UK: Gale & Polden, 1957.
  • Grant, A.J., and Harold Temperley. Europe in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. 2 vols. London: Longman, 1986. First published 1932.
  • Great Britain Admiralty. British Vessels Lost at Sea, 1914-1918. Cambridge: Stephens, 1977. Great Britain Admiralty. British Vessels Lost at Sea, 1939-1945. Cambridge: Stephens, 1977.
  • Grey, Sir Edward. Twenty-Five Years, 1892-1916. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1985. First published 1925.
  • Hale, Oron James. The Great Illusion, 1900-1914. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.
  • Hamill, Ian. The Strategic Illusion: The Singapore Strategy and the Defence of Australia and New Zealand, 1919-1942. Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1981.
  • Herodotus. The Persian War. Translated by William Shepherd. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
  • Hopper, Bruce C. “Narkomindel and Comintern.” Foreign Affairs 19 (1940): 737-750.
  • Hornblower, Simon. Vol. 1 and 2 of A Commentary on Thucydides. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
  • Horne, Alistair. To Lose a Battle: France 1940. Rev. ed. London: Penguin, 2007. First published 1969.
  • Horne, Alistair. The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916. Rev. ed. London: Penguin Books, 1993. First published 1962.
  • Hoyt, Edwin P. The Lonely Ships: The Life and Death of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet. New York: Jove Books, 1989. First published 1976.
  • Jelavich, Barbara. A Century of Russian Foreign Policy, 1814-1914. New York: J.B. Lippincott, 1964.
  • Jelavich, Barbara. History of the Balkans. 2 vols. Reprint, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. First Published 1983.
  • Jelavich, Charles. Tsarist Russia and Balkan Nationalism: Russian Influence in the Internal Affairs of Bulgaria and Serbia (1879-1886). Reprint, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978.
  • Johnson, Douglas Wilson. Topography and Strategy in the War. Washington: U.S. Marine Corps, 1989. First published 1917.
  • Jomini, Baron de. The Art of War. Translated by G. H. Mendell and W. P. Craighill. Dodo Press, 2007. First published French 1836, English 1862.
  • Jones, R.V. Most Secret War. Combined Publishing, 1998.
  • Kato, Masuo. The Lost War: A Japanese Reporter’s Inside Story. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1946.
  • Kerner, Robert. The Urge to the Sea: The Course of Russian History. Russell & Russell Publishing, 1971. First published 1942.
  • Kirby, S. Woodburn. Singapore: The Chain of Disaster. New York: Macmillan, 1971.
  • Langer, William L. The Diplomacy of Imperialism. 2nd ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968. First published 1935.
  • Langer, William L. European Alliances and Alignments 1871-1890. Reprint, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977. First published 1931.
  • Langer, William L., and S. Everett Gleason. The Undeclared War 1940-1941. Gloucester, MA: P. Smith, 1968. First published 1953.
  • Lewin, Ronald. Ultra Goes to War: The Secret Story. London: Penguin, 2001. First published 1978.
  • Liddell-Hart, B.H. The History of the Second World War. London: Pan Books, 2014. First published 1970.
  • Liddell-Hart, B.H. The Real War: 1914-1918. Norwalk, CT: Easton Press, 1994. First published 1930.
  • Lipsom, E. Europe in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. 8th rev. ed. A&C Black Publishers: London, 1960. First published 1948.
  • Luttwak, Edward. The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire: From the First Century A.D. to the Third. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979.
  • Luvaas, Jay. Frederick the Great on the Art of War. New York: Da Capo Press, 1999.
  • MacCartney, C.A., and A.W. Palmer. Independent Eastern Europe. London: Pan Macmillan, 1962.
  • Mackinder, Halford. Britain and the British Seas. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2007. First published 1902.
  • Mackinder, Halford. Democratic Ideals and Reality. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981. First published 1919.
  • Mackintosh, John Malcolm. Juggernaut: A History of the Soviet Armed Forces. New York: Macmillan, 1967.
  • Mahan, Alfred Thayer. The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future. Charleston, SC: Bibliobazaar, 2007. First published 1897.
  • Mahan, Alfred Thayer. The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793-1812. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2007. First published 1892.
  • Mahan, Alfred Thayer. The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783. Charleston, SC: Bibliobazaar, 2007. First published 1890.
  • Mahan, Alfred Thayer. Lessons of the War with Spain. Ayer Co. Publishing, 1970. First published 1899.
  • Mahan, Alfred Thayer. The Life of Nelson: The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2007. First published 1897.
  • Mahan, Alfred Thayer. The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence. IndyPublish, 2007. First published 1913.
  • Mahan, Alfred Thayer. Naval Administration and Warfare: Some General Principles, with Other Essays. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1908.
  • Mahan, Alfred Thayer. Naval Strategy: Compared and Contrasted with the Principles and Practice of Military Operations on Land. Washington, DC: U.S. Marine Corps, 1991.  First published 1911.
  • Mahan, Alfred Thayer. The Problem of Asia and Its Effect upon International Policies. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2003. First published 1900.
  • Mahan, Alfred Thayer. Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812.Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2006. First published 1905.
  • Malone, Patrick M. The Skulking Way of War: Technology and Tactics among the New England Indians. Lanham, MD: Madison Books, 2000.
  • Marder, Arthur. From Dreadnought to Scapa Flow. 5 vols. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2013-14. First published 1961-70.
  • Marriott, J.A.R. The Eastern Question: An Historical Study in European Diplomacy. 4th ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969. First published 1917.
  • Marriott, J.A.R. and C. Grant Robertson. The Evolution of Prussia: The Making of an Empire. Hardpress, 2013. First published 1917.
  • Matsuo, Kinoaki. How Japan Plans to Win: The Three-Power Alliance and the United States Japanese War. London: George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd., 1942. First published 1940 in Tokyo.
  • Maxwell, Neville. India’s China War. Pan, 1999. First published 1967.
  • Middlebrook, Martin, and Chris Everitt. The Bomber Command War Diaries: An Operations Reference Book 1939-1945. Osceola, WI: Motorbooks International, 1996.
  • Millar, George. The Bruneval Raid: Stealing Hitler’s Radar. 2nd ed.London: Cassell, 2004. First published 1974.
  • Monsarrat, Nicholas. The Cruel Sea. Reprint, London: Penguin Books, 2009. First published 1951.
  • Morgan, J.H. Assize of Arms: The Disarmament of Germany and Her Rearmament (1919-1939). New York: Oxford University Press, 1946.
  • Morris, Donald R. The Washing of the Spears. New York: Da Capo Press, 1998.
  • Moulton, J.L. Warfare in Three Dimensions. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1968.
  • Murray, Williamson. Strategy for Defeat: the Luftwaffe 1933-1945. Honolulu, HI: University Press of the Pacific, 2002.
  • Naumann, Friedrich. Central Europe (Mittel-Europa). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1971. First published 1917.
  • Nicolson, Harold. The Congress of Vienna: A Study in Allied Unity, 1812-1822. 13th ed. New York: Viking Press, 1969. First published 1946.
  • Ogg, David. Europe in the 17th Century. 8th ed. New York: Collier Books, 1965. First published 1925.
  • Oman, Charles. The History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages. Rev. ed. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1960.
  • Peckham, Howard H. The Colonial Wars, 1689-1762. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965.
  • Prange, Gordon. At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor. London: Penguin, 2001. First published 1981.
  • Price, Anthony. Other Paths to Glory. London: Orion, 2002. First published 1974.
  • Rodgers, W.L. Greek and Roman Naval Warfare: A Study of Strategy, Tactics, and Ship Design from Salamis (480 B.C.) to Actium (31 B.C.). Norwalk, CT: Easton Press, 1991. First published 1937.
  • Rohwer, Jürgen. Axis Submarine Successes of World War Two: German, Italian and Japanese Submarine Successes in World War II, 1939-1945. Rev. ed. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1999.
  • Rohwer, Jürgen, and Gerhard Hümmelchen. The Chronology of the War at Sea, 1939-1945. 3rd ed. London: Chatham Publishing, 2005. First published 1974.
  • Rohwer, Jürgen, Judy Soloway Kay, and I.N. Venkov. Allied Submarine Attacks of World War Two: European Theatre of Operations 1939-1945. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997.
  • Ross, Stephen T. European Diplomatic History, 1789-1815: France Against Europe. Malabar, FL: R.E. Krieger, 1986. First published 1969.
  • Rostow, W.W. Pre-Invasion Bombing Strategy: General Eisenhower’s Decision of March 25. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981.
  • Ryan, Cornelius. A Bridge Too Far. London: Hodder, 2007. First published 1974.
  • Ryan, Cornelius. The Longest Day. Hauppauge, NY: Barron’s Educational Series, 2014. First published 1959.
  • Schevill, Ferdinand. A History of the Balkans: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day. New York: Dorset Press, 1991. First published 1922.
  • Schwartz, Seymour I. The French and Indian War, 1754-1763: The Imperial Struggle for North America. Book Sales, 2000.
  • Seton-Watson, Hugh. Eastern Europe between the Wars. Boulder: Westview Press, 1986. First published 1945.
  • Seton-Watson, R. W. Disraeli, Gladstone and the Eastern Question. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2004. First published 1935.
  • Seton-Watson, R.W. Sarajevo: A Study in the Origins of the Great War. Reprint, New York: H. Fertig, 1973. First published 1926.
  • Sidorenko, A.A. The Offensive: A Soviet View. Honolulu, HI: University Press of the Pacific, 2001. First published in English 1970.
  • Sontag, Raymond J. “The Democracies and the Dictators since 1933.” Journal of the American Philosophical Society 98, no. 5 (1954): 313-317.
  • Saul, Norman E. Russia and the Mediterranean, 1797-1807. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970.
  • Spears, Edward. Assignment to Catastrophe. Reprint Society, 1964. First published 1954.
  • Spears, Edward. Liaison 1914: A Narrative of the Great Retreat. Weidenfeld Military, 1999. First published 1930.
  • Spears, Edward. Prelude to Victory. London: J. Cape, 1939.
  • Spykman, Nicholas J. America’s Strategy in World Politics: The United States and the Balance of Power. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2007. First published 1942.
  • Spykman, Nicholas J. The Geography of the Peace. Edited by Helen R. Nicholl. Reprint, Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1969. First published 1944.
  • Still, William N. American Sea Power in the Old World. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980.
  • Stillwell, Paul. Air Raid: Pearl Harbor! : Recollections of a Day of Infamy. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1981.
  • Sun Pin. Military Methods. Translated by Ralph D. Sawyer. Boulder: Westview Press 1995.  First published 4th Century BC.
  • Sun Tzu. The Art of War. Edited by James H. Ford and Shawn Conners. Translated by Lionel Giles. El Paso Norte Press, 2005. First published 6th Century BC.
  • Taylor, A.J.P. Struggle for the Mastery of Europe. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007. First published 1942.
  • Terraine, John. Douglas Haig: The Educated Soldier. London: Hutchinson, 1963.
  • Terraine, John. Ordeal of Victory. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1963.
  • Terraine, John. The U-Boat Wars, 1916-1945. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1990.
  • Terraine, John. To Win a War: 1918 The Year of Victory. London: Cassell, 2003.
  • Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War. Rev. ed. Edited by M.I. Finley. Translated by Rex Warner. Boston: Penguin Books, 1954.
  • Topitsch, Ernst. Stalin’s War: A Radical New Theory of the Origins of the Second World War. New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 1987.
  • Trotsky, Leon. Military Writings. Pathfinder Press, 1971. First published 1924.
  • United States Joint Army-Navy Board. Joint Overseas Expeditions. Washington, DC: GPO, 1933.
  • United States President’s Air Policy Commission. Survival in the Air Age: A Report of the President’s Air Policy Commission. Washington, DC: GPO, 1948.
  • Watt, Richard. Bitter Glory: Poland and its Fate, 1918-1939. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1998. First published 1979.
  • Wheeler-Bennett, J.W., and Anthony Nicholls. The Semblance of Peace: The Political Settlement after the Second World War. New York: Norton, 1974.
  • Wheeler-Bennett,J.W. Brest-Litovsk: The Forgotten Peace, March 1918. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1971. First published 1939.
  • Wheeler-Bennett, J.W. Hindenburg: The Wooden Titan. London: Macmillian, 1967. First published 1936.
  • Wheeler-Bennett, J.W. Munich: Prologue to Tragedy. 3rd ed. New York: Viking Press, 1968.  First published 1948.
  • Wheeler-Bennett, J.W. The Nemesis of Power: The German Army in Politics, 1918-1945. 2nd ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2005. First published 1953.
  • Whittaker, C.R. Frontiers of the Roman Empire: A Social and Economic Study. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.
  • Wilmont, Chester. The Struggle for Europe. Ware, UK: Wordsworth Editions, 1997. First published 1952.
  • Wilson, Trevor. The Myriad Faces of War. Faber & Faber, 2010. First published 1986.
  • Winslow, W.G. The Fleet the Gods Forgot: The United States Asiatic Fleet in World War II. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1994. First published 1982.
  • Wohlstetter, Roberta. Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1962.
  • Wolff, Robert Lee. The Balkans in Our Times. Rev. ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974. First published 1967.
  • Woytak, Richard. On the Border of War and Peace: Polish Intelligence and Diplomacy in 1937-1939 and the Origins of the Ultra Secret. New York: Columbia University Press, 1979.
  • Xenophon. The Persian Expedition. Rev. ed. Translated by Rex Warner. New York: Penguin Books, 1950.
  • Ziemke, Earl F. From Stalingrad to Berlin: The German Defeat in the East. Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword Books, 2014. First published 1968.