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Peter Mansoor, a retired army colonel who served as executive officer to General David Petraeus in Iraq during the surge in 2007–2008, is the General Raymond E. Mason, Jr. Chair of Military History at Ohio State University. He is the author of The GI Offensive in Europe (1999) and Baghdad at Sunrise (2008).

The Breaking Point

Robert A. Doughty (1990)
“The best account in English of the crucial battle of Sedan in May 1940, where Heinz Guderian and his panzer divisions penetrated the methodical French defense along the Meuse River and initiated the German breakthrough to the Channel coast.”

A War to Be Won
Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millett (2000)
“Superb operational-level history of World War II by two of the best military historians of the modern era.”

An Army at Dawn
Rick Atkinson (2002)
“Magisterial, Pulitzer Prize–winning history of the Army of the United States in its inaugural campaign across the Atlantic in North Africa—the first volume in the author’s exceptional Liberation Trilogy.”

With the Old Breed
E. B. Sledge (1981)
“Harrowing memoir of the battles of Peleliu and Okinawa that personifies the courage and tenacity of Marines in combat in the Pacific during World War II.”

Beyond the War
“I enjoy strategy war games—the old Avalon Hill board games, such as The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and newer computer games such as the Age of Empires series. And I’m an ardent admirer of J. R. R. Tolkien’s writings—The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Frodo lives!”