Military Reads

Lysistrata (411 BCE) was written by the best-known Greek comic poet, the Athenian playwright Aristophanes. We know little of Aristophanes’ life outside of his work. His birth and death cannot be firmly dated, but he was believed to have been born around 460 BCE and died sometime in the mid-380s BCE. His active period, though, is more certain— around 425 to 388 BCE—making him a contemporary of other fifth-century Athenian luminaries like Socrates, Euripides, and... Read Lysistrata Summary

Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak (2003), by French journalist Jean Hatzfeld, presents ten accounts of ordinary contributors to the Rwandan genocide, which killed 800,000 Tutsis in just two months in 1994. Each survivor is from the same relatively small city and goes into depth about the neighbors they murdered (or helped murder). The work was first translated into English by Linda Coverdale.Its themes include personal responsibility, the horrors of groupthink, and mass dehumanization... Read Machete Season Summary

Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life…and Maybe the World is a work of self-help psychology by Admiral William H. McRaven. The book is a continuation and expansion of a commencement speech McRaven delivered at the University of Texas at Austin in 2014, which went viral on the internet. Formerly a high-ranking officer of the US Navy and Commander of US Special Operations Command, McRaven relates his experiences in Navy SEAL training to... Read Make Your Bed Summary

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Manhunt: The Twelve-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer (2006) by James L. Swanson is a popular true-crime historical thriller about the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865 and the search for the assassin John Wilkes Booth. James Swanson has written several books about Abraham Lincoln and other events in American history including the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The book won the Edgar Award, a literary award for fiction and non-fiction works... Read Manhunt Summary

March is mostly told from the perspective of Mr. March, a military chaplain assisting Union soldiers during the Civil War. In the opening sequence, Mr. March tries to save the life of a wounded soldier but fails. This marks the first death for which he holds himself responsible, providing a foundation for his increasingly guilty conscience. His wartime assignment brings him to a plantation that he recognizes from his youth, sending him into a detailed flashback:... Read March Summary

Master and Commander is a historical novel by the English writer Patrick O’Brian. It was first published in 1969, although it is set in 1800. O’Brian’s work is meticulously researched, drawing upon documents from the time period such as naval logs, official letters, and memories of sailors who fought in the Napoleonic Wars. Many of the naval battles described in the novel are based on real events, particularly Lord Thomas Cochrane’s victory over the superior... Read Master and Commander Summary

Maus by Art Spiegelman was the first graphic novel to win the Pulitzer Prize. It originally ran in Spiegelman’s Raw magazine between 1980 and 1991 before receiving mainstream attention as two collected volumes, Maus I in 1986 and Maus II in 1991. This guide is based on the 1996 complete edition. This historic memoir interlaces two narratives, one of Spiegelman’s Jewish father as he survives World War II Poland and the Auschwitz concentration camp, and... Read Maus Summary

Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War is a historical nonfiction narrative by New York Times bestseller Nathaniel Philbrick (Valiant Ambition). The book outlines the reasons for the Mayflower’s historic voyage and offers a realistic account of the Pilgrims' first 55 years in the New World. Perhaps most important, in Philbrick’s assessment, is the tenuous relationship between the Pilgrims and their Indigenous neighbors, and the text investigates superficial assessments of the Pilgrims, including the... Read Mayflower Summary

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Milkweed is a young adult historical fiction novel by Jerry Spinelli. Published in 2003, Milkweed won the 2004 Golden Kite Award and 2003 Carolyn W. Field Award in fiction. The novel follows a young, unnamed boy’s life in Warsaw, Poland, during the Holocaust. Orphaned at a young age, the unnamed protagonist runs wild in the streets of Warsaw, stealing bread from unsuspecting passersby. The boy identifies himself as “Stopthief,” but he remembers almost nothing about... Read Milkweed Summary

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Penelope Lively’s 1987 novel Moon Tiger is a work of historical fiction. Set primarily in England and Egypt during the 20th century, the novel is a frame story that joins protagonist Claudia Hampton on her deathbed as she reflects on the relationships, memories, and historical forces that shaped her life. The author was awarded the 1987 Booker Prize for the novel. Moon Tiger explores the subjective nature of memory, the difference between lived and linear... Read Moon Tiger Summary

Mornings in Jenin is a historical novel that spans the years between 1941 and 2003 and is focused on the Israeli invasion and occupation of Palestine. The author, Susan Abulhawa, is the child of Palestinian refugees and was brought up in several countries, including the United States. She writes the novel from the points of view of several members of a Palestinian family who lose their land, home, and loved ones. The novel relates the... Read Mornings in Jenin Summary

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Mother Night, by Kurt Vonnegut, is a World War II novel first published in 1961. Vonnegut’s third novel, it garnered little recognition when it was first released, and it wasn’t until Vonnegut’s success with Cat’s Cradle in 1963 and his breakout fifth novel, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), that Mother Night was revaluated as a powerful work of moral exploration by an author who would go on to become America’s leading satirist and who is now recognized as... Read Mother Night Summary

My Brother Sam Is Dead tells the story of the Tim Meeker and his family during the years of the American Revolutionary War. Published in 1974, the novel won many awards, including a Newbery Honor, an American Library Association Notable Children’s Book designation, and National Book Award nomination. James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier, the authors, are brothers who together wrote a series of historical novels for young adults. James, a journalist, wrote most of... Read My Brother Sam Is Dead Summary

This guide is based on the first edition of Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland, published in 2001 by Princeton University Press. Written by Jan Tomasz Gross, Neighbors is a critically acclaimed account of Poland’s role in the Holocaust. It inspired the 2012 film Aftermath, directed by Wladyslaw Pasikowski.Content Warning: The source material and this guide include discussions of antisemitism, war, and the Holocaust.On July 10, 1941, nearly two years after... Read Neighbors Summary

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