The March 2018 revision of the Defense Intelligence Agency reading list

(source) As intelligence officers, our most critical asset is our mind. Self-study increases our speed, creativity, and confidence. Without self-study, our expertise is limited to our direct experiences. Reading vastly multiplies our experiences in life—as parents, as friends, as spouses, and as leaders. By reading, we can learn from the experiences of an immeasurable number of people. And, hopefully, our reading allows us to learn from the mistakes of others, before we make those mistakes ourselves. Old ideas give us new ideas. History really does teach us something. It inspires, motivates, and elevates us

This revision

Leadership and Professional Development

Book cover for American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant

Book cover for Anticipating Surprise: Analysis for Strategic Warning

Book cover for The Art Of War

Book cover for The Craft of Intelligence: America's Legendary Spy Master on the Fundamentals of Intelligence Gathering for a Free World

Book cover for Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War

Book cover for The Emperor's Handbook: A New Translation of The Meditations

Book cover for Fighting Talk: Forty Maxims on War, Peace, and Strategy

Book cover for The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels

Book cover for The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable

Book cover for Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters

Book cover for Grey Eminence: Fox Conner and the Art of Mentorship

Book cover for How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from the Pentagon

Book cover for It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership

Book cover for Legacy

Book cover for Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life...And Maybe the World

Book cover for A Message to Garcia

Book cover for Nineteen Stars: A Study in Military Character and Leadership

Book cover for On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society

Book cover for On War

Book cover for One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer

Book cover for Outliers: The Story of Success

Book cover for Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision

Book cover for Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy

Book cover for Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

Book cover for Psychology of Intelligence Analysis

Book cover for Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life

Book cover for The Rise and Fall of Intelligence: An International Security History

Book cover for Scales on War: The Future of America's Military at Risk

Book cover for Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions

Book cover for The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations

Book cover for Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction

Book cover for Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

Book cover for Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

Book cover for Thinking, Fast and Slow

Book cover for WAR

History

Book cover for 1776

Book cover for An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943

Book cover for Ashley's War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield

Book cover for Band of Brothers : E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest

Book cover for Black April: The Fall of South Vietnam, 1973-75

Book cover for Black Hearts: One Platoon's Descent into Madness in Iraq's Triangle of Death

Book cover for The Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History

Book cover for Combat Ready?: The Eighth U.S. Army on the Eve of the Korean War

Book cover for The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944

Book cover for Defeat Into Victory: Battling Japan in Burma and India, 1942-1945

Book cover for G-2: Intelligence for Patton

Book cover for Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae

Book cover for Great Strategic Rivalries: From The Classical World to the Cold War

Book cover for The Guns of August

Book cover for Hell In A Very Small Place: The Siege Of Dien Bien Phu

Book cover for The Killer Angels: A Novel

Book cover for The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War

Book cover for The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam

Book cover for On the Origins of War: And the Preservation of Peace

Book cover for The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor

Book cover for The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers

Book cover for A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962

Book cover for Scipio Africanus: Rome's Greatest General

Book cover for Street Without Joy: The French Debacle In Indochina

Book cover for Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime

Book cover for This Kind of War

Book cover for To Lose a Battle: France 1940

Book cover for The Ugly American

Book cover for The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914

Book cover for We Were Soldiers Once...and Young: Ia Drang - the Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam

Book cover for A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918

Book cover for With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

Book cover for The Zimmerman Telegram

Global Analysis

Book cover for 7 Deadly Scenarios: A Military Futurist Explores War in the 21st Century

Book cover for The Accidental Superpower: The Next Generation of American Preeminence and the Coming Global Disorder

Book cover for All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror

Book cover for Asia's Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific

Book cover for The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters

Book cover for Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization

Book cover for Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?

Book cover for Easternization: Asia's Rise and America's Decline From Obama to Trump and Beyond

Book cover for Freedom at Midnight

Book cover for The Future, Declassified: Megatrends That Will Undo the World Unless We Take Action

Book cover for Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War

Book cover for The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

Book cover for Korean Dream

Book cover for Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master's Insights on China, the United States, and the World

Book cover for Machine, Platform, Crowd: Harnessing Our Digital Future

Book cover for The Next Decade: Empire and Republic in a Changing World

Book cover for On China

Book cover for The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate

Book cover for A Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 and the Price We Pay Today

Book cover for Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-Makers

Book cover for The Tragedy of Great Power Politics

Book cover for The Twilight War: The Secret History of America's Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran

Book cover for The Unquiet Frontier: Rising Rivals, Vulnerable Allies, and the Crisis of American Power

Book cover for Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century

Book cover for Without You, There Is No Us: Undercover Among the Sons of North Korea's Elite

Book cover for World Order