Books like Stupid Wars by Ed Strosser

War is a Racket exposes how war profiteers benefit while ordinary soldiers suffer, arguing that the military-industrial complex prioritizes profit over public welfare.

John Keegan offers a visceral, on‑the‑frontline view of combat, comparing three iconic battles—Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme—to reveal the physical, emotional, and motivational realities soldiers face.

The definitive, fact‑based account of the USS Indianapolis tragedy and the 50‑year quest to clear its captain’s name.

A gripping and intimate account of the Second World War, from its start to its conclusion and beyond, capturing the complex and tragic events of one of the most pivotal eras in world history.

John Keegan's nonfiction study examines the causes, strategy and consequences of the Iraq War, drawing on exclusive interviews with senior US and British military leaders.

The Soviet war in Afghanistan was a grueling debacle that has striking lessons for the twenty-first century. In The Great Gamble, Gregory Feifer examines the conflict from the perspective of the soldiers on the ground. During the last years of the Cold War, the Soviet Union sent some of its most elite troops to unfamiliar lands in Central Asia to fight a vaguely defined enemy, which eventually defeated their superior numbers with unconventional tactics. Although the Soviet leadership initially saw the invasion as a victory, many Russian soldiers came to view the war as a demoralizing and devastating defeat, the consequences of which had a substantial impact on the Soviet Union and its collapse.Feifer's extensive research includes eye-opening interviews with participants from both sides of the conflict. In gripping detail, he vividly depicts the invasion of a volatile country that no power has ever successfully conquered. Parallels between the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq are impossible to ignore — both conflicts were waged amid vague ideological rhetoric about freedom. Both were roundly condemned by the outside world for trying to impose their favored forms of government on countries with very different ways of life. And both seem destined to end on uncertain terms.A groundbreaking account seen through the eyes of the men who fought it, The Great Gamble tells an unforgettable story full of drama, action, and political intrigue whose relevance in our own time is greater than ever.

Michael Walzer’s *Just and Unjust Wars* examines the moral and ethical dimensions of armed conflict, arguing that just war theory should guide democratic decision‑making and public debate.

A chronological survey of conflicts across the Americas, detailing battles, political events, and the interplay of European and indigenous forces, with maps and comprehensive bibliographic tools.

The horrific series of conflicts known as the Thirty Years War (1618-48) tore the heart out of Europe, killing perhaps a quarter of all Germans and laying waste to whole areas of Central Europe to such a degree that many towns and regions never recovered. All the major European powers apart from Russia were heavily involved and, while each country started out with rational war aims, the fighting rapidly spiralled out of control, with great battles giving way to marauding bands of starving soldiers spreading plague and murder. The war was both a religious and a political one and it was this tangle of motives that made it impossible to stop. Whether motivated by idealism or cynicism, everyone drawn into the conflict was destroyed by it. At its end a recognizably modern Europe had been created but at a terrible price.Peter Wilson's book is a major work, the first new history of the war in a generation, and a fascinating, brilliantly written attempt to explain a compelling series of events. Wilson's great strength is in allowing the reader to understand the tragedy of mixed motives that allowed rulers to gamble their countries' future with such horrifying results. The principal actors in the drama (Wallenstein, Ferdinand II, Gustavus Adolphus, Richelieu) are all here, but so is the experience of the ordinary soldiers and civilians, desperately trying to stay alive under impossible circumstances.The extraordinary narrative of the war haunted Europe's leaders into the twentieth century (comparisons with 1939–45 were entirely appropriate) and modern Europe cannot be understood without reference to this dreadful conflict.

A comprehensive reference covering over 1,800 global conflicts spanning more than 4,000 years, with concise summaries and extensive cross‑referencing for military, political, social, economic, and cultural context.

The Logic of Violence in Civil War argues that battlefield violence follows a coherent logic, shaped by political actors’ information tactics and civilians’ opportunistic responses, rather than blind passion or ideology.