The Generals: American Military Command From World War II to Today

About the Book

History has been kind to the American generals of World War II and less kind to the generals of the wars that followed. Setting out to explain why, Thomas E. Ricks cites a widening gulf between performance and accountability. Then, scores of American generals were relieved of command simply for not being good enough. Today, as one American colonel said bitterly, “A private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war.”

About the Author :

Thomas E. Ricks is a fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a contributing editor of "Foreign Policy" magazine, for which he writes the prize-winning blog "The Best Defense." Ricks covered the U.S. military for "The Washington Post "from 2000 through 2008. Until the end of 1999 he had the same beat at "The Wall Street Journal," where he was a reporter for seventeen years. 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 Gamble "and the #1 New York Times bestseller "Fiasco," which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Review :
"[A] savvy study of leadership. Combining lucid historical analysis, acid-etched portraits of generals from 'troublesome blowhard' Douglas MacArthur to 'two-time loser' Tommy Franks, and shrewd postmortems of military failures and pointless slaughters such as My Lai, the author demonstrates how everything from strategic doctrine to personnel policies create a mediocre, rigid, morally derelict army leadership... Ricks presents an incisive, hard-hitting corrective to unthinking veneration of American military prowess."
--"Publisher's Weekly "(Starred Review)

"Informed readers, especially military buffs, will appreciate this provocative, blistering critique of a system where accountability appears to have gone missing - like the author's 2006 bestseller, "Fiasco", this book is bound to cause heartburn in the Pentagon."
--Kirkus "This is a brilliant book--deeply researched, very well-written and outspoken. Ricks pulls no punches in naming names as he cites serious failures of leadership, even as we were winning World War II, and failures that led to serious problems in later wars. And he calls for rethinking the concept of generalship in the Army of the future."
--William J. Perry, 19th U.S. Secretary of Defense
"Thomas E. Ricks has written a definitive and comprehensive story of American generalship from the battlefields of World War II to the recent war in Iraq. "The Generals" candidly reveals their triumphs and failures, and offers a prognosis of what can be done to ensure success by our future leaders in the volatile world of the twenty-first century."
--Carlo D'Este, author of "Patton: A Genius for War"
"Tom Ricks has written another provocative and superbly researched book that addresses a critical issue, generalship. After each period of conflict in our history, the quality and performance of our senior military leaders comes under serious scrutiny. "The Generals" will be a definitive and controversial work that will spark the debate, once again, regarding how we make and choose our top military leaders."
--Anthony C. Zinni, General USMC (Ret.)
""The Generals" is insightful, well written and thought-provoking. Using General George C. Marshall as the gold standard, it is replete with examples of good and bad generalship in the postwar years. Too often a bureaucratic culture in those years failed to connect performance with consequences. This gave rise to many mediocre and poor senior leaders. Seldom have any of them ever been held accountable for their failures. This book justifiably calls for a return to the strict, demanding and successful Marshall prescription for generalship. It is a reminder that the lives of soldiers are more important than the careers of officers--and that winning wars is more important than either."
--Bernard E. Trainor, "Thomas E. Ricks has written a definitive and comprehensive story of American generalship from the battlefields of World War II to the recent war in Iraq. "The Generals" candidly reveals their triumphs and failures, and offers a prognosis of what can be done to ensure success by our future leaders in the volatile world of the twenty-first century."
--Carlo D'Este, author of "Patton: A Genius for War"
"Tom Ricks has written another provocative and superbly researched book that addresses a critical issue, generalship. After each period of conflict in our history, the quality and performance of our senior military leaders comes under serious scrutiny. "The Generals" will be a definitive and controversial work that will spark the debate, once again, regarding how we make and choose our top military leaders."
--Anthony C. Zinni, General USMC (Ret.)
""The Generals" is insightful, well written and thought-provoking. Using General George C. Marshall as the gold standard, it is replete with examples of good and bad generalship in the postwar years. Too often a bureaucratic culture in those years failed to connect performance with consequences. This gave rise to many mediocre and poor senior leaders. Seldom have any of them ever been held accountable for their failures. This book justifiably calls for a return to the strict, demanding and successful Marshall prescription for generalship. It is a reminder that the lives of soldiers are more important than the careers of officers--and that winning wars is more important than either."
--Bernard E. Trainor, Lt. Gen. USMC (Ret.); author of "The Generals' War"
""The Generals" rips up the definition of professionalism in which the US Army has clothed itself. Tom Ricks shows that it has lost the habit of sacking those who cannot meet the challenge of war, leaving it to Presidents to do so. His devastating analysis explains much that is wrong in US civil-military relations. America's allies, who hav