The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today
(OverDrive MP3 Audiobook, OverDrive Listen)

Book Cover
Average Rating
Status:
Available from OverDrive
Also in This Series
More Details
Published:
Blackstone Publishing 2012
Format:
OverDrive MP3 Audiobook, OverDrive Listen
Edition:
Unabridged
Street Date:
10/30/2012
Language:
English
ISBN:
9781483060668
Reviews from GoodReads
Loading GoodReads Reviews.
Copy Details
LibraryOwnedAvailable
Shared Digital Collection32
Citations
APA Citation (style guide)

Thomas E. Ricks. (2012). The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today. Unabridged Blackstone Publishing.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

Thomas E. Ricks. 2012. The Generals: American Military Command From World War II to Today. Blackstone Publishing.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

Thomas E. Ricks, The Generals: American Military Command From World War II to Today. Blackstone Publishing, 2012.

MLA Citation (style guide)

Thomas E. Ricks. The Generals: American Military Command From World War II to Today. Unabridged Blackstone Publishing, 2012.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
Staff View
Grouped Work ID:
cfbd8423-2d4e-b248-111c-fb668dc310d9
Go To Grouped Work
Needs Update?:
No
Date Added:
Apr 23, 2014 15:50:26
Date Updated:
Dec 06, 2020 07:28:40
Last Metadata Check:
Mar 26, 2024 17:39:14
Last Metadata Change:
Feb 13, 2024 09:07:07
Last Availability Check:
Mar 26, 2024 17:39:15
Last Availability Change:
Mar 26, 2024 17:39:15
Last Grouped Work Modification Time:
Mar 27, 2024 03:08:25

OverDrive Product Record

images
    • cover:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0887-1/{DCF03F83-74A2-400D-8823-D7260A506259}Img100.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
    • thumbnail:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0887-1/{DCF03F83-74A2-400D-8823-D7260A506259}Img200.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
    • cover150Wide:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0887-1/DCF/03F/83/{DCF03F83-74A2-400D-8823-D7260A506259}Img150.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
    • cover300Wide:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0887-1/DCF/03F/83/{DCF03F83-74A2-400D-8823-D7260A506259}Img400.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
formats
      • identifiers:
            • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
            • value: 9781982491307
            • type: ISBN
            • value: 9781483060668
      • name: OverDrive MP3 Audiobook
      • id: audiobook-mp3
      • identifiers:
            • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
            • value: 9781982491307
            • type: ISBN
            • value: 9781483060668
      • name: OverDrive Listen
      • id: audiobook-overdrive
otherFormatIdentifiers
      • type: ISBN
      • value: 9781470817275
mediaType
Audiobook
primaryCreator
    • role: Author
    • name: Thomas E. Ricks
title
The Generals
dateAdded
2013-01-02T14:10:00-05:00
contentDetails
      • href: https://link.overdrive.com/?websiteID=426&titleID=911697
      • type: text/html
      • account:
          • name: Wake County Public Libraries (NC)
          • id: 1893
sortTitle
Generals American Military Command from World War II to Today
crossRefId
911697
subtitle
American Military Command from World War II to Today
id
dcf03f83-74a2-400d-8823-d7260a506259
starRating
4

OverDrive MetaData

isPublicDomain
False
formats
      • duration: 15:46:30
      • fileName: TheGenerals_9781483060675_911697
      • partCount: 15
      • fileSize: 454452856
      • identifiers:
            • audience: retailer
            • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
            • value: 9781982491307
            • audience: library
            • type: ISBN
            • value: 9781483060668
      • rights:
            • type: PlayOnPC
            • value: 1
            • type: PlayOnPCCount
            • value: -1
            • type: BurnToCD
            • value: 1
            • type: BurnToCDCount
            • value: -1
            • type: PlayOnPM
            • value: 1
            • type: TransferToSDMI
            • value: 1
            • type: TransferToNonSDMI
            • value: 1
            • type: TransferCount
            • value: -1
            • type: CollaborativePlay
            • value: 0
            • type: PublicPerformance
            • value: 0
            • type: TranscodeToAAC
            • value: 1
      • name: OverDrive MP3 Audiobook
      • isReadAlong: False
      • id: audiobook-mp3
      • onSaleDate: 10/30/2012
      • samples:
            • source: Part 1
            • formatType: audiobook-mp3
            • url: https://excerpts.cdn.overdrive.com/FormatType-425/0887-1/911697-TheGenerals.mp3
            • source: Part 1
            • formatType: audiobook-overdrive
            • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=DCF03F83-74A2-400D-8823-D7260A506259&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
      • duration: 15:46:37
      • fileName: Generals9781470817299
      • partCount: 0
      • fileSize: 454381812
      • identifiers:
            • audience: retailer
            • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
            • value: 9781982491307
            • audience: library
            • type: ISBN
            • value: 9781483060668
      • name: OverDrive Listen
      • isReadAlong: False
      • id: audiobook-overdrive
      • onSaleDate: 10/30/2012
      • samples:
            • source: Part 1
            • formatType: audiobook-mp3
            • url: https://excerpts.cdn.overdrive.com/FormatType-425/0887-1/911697-TheGenerals.mp3
            • source: Part 1
            • formatType: audiobook-overdrive
            • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=DCF03F83-74A2-400D-8823-D7260A506259&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
keywords
      • value: O. P. Smith
      • value: World War II
      • value: Vietnam
      • value: Iraq
      • value: 1940s
      • value: marshall
      • value: 1900s
      • value: eisenhower
      • value: strategy
      • value: 1950
      • value: army
      • value: tactics
      • value: Korea
      • value: 20th Century
      • value: Afghanistan
      • value: WWII
      • value: United States
      • value: General
      • value: Bradley
      • value: soldiers
      • value: My Lai Massacre
      • value: Second World War
      • value: battle
      • value: Marines
      • value: twentieth century
      • value: Leadership
      • value: accountability
      • value: Patton
creators
      • role: Author
      • fileAs: Ricks, Thomas E.
      • bioText:

        Thomas E. Ricks, New York Times bestselling author, is an adviser on national security at the New America Foundation, where he participates in its "Future of War" project. He was previously a fellow at the Center for a New American Security and is a contributing editor of Foreign Policy magazine, for which he writes the prizewinning blog The Best Defense. A member of two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams, he covered US military activities in Somalia, Haiti, Korea, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Kuwait, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Iraq. He is the author of several books, including The Generals, The Gamble, and the number one New York Times bestseller Fiasco, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

      • name: Thomas E. Ricks
      • role: Narrator
      • fileAs: Hughes, William
      • name: William Hughes
imprint
Blackstone Audio, Inc., and Buck 50 Productions, LLC
publishDate
2012-10-30T00:00:00-04:00
edition
Unabridged
isOwnedByCollections
True
title
The Generals
fullDescription

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Fiasco and The Gamble comes an epic history of the decline of American military leadership from World War II to Iraq.

History has been kinder to the American generals of World War II—Marshall, Eisenhower, Patton, and Bradley—than to the generals of the wars that followed. Is this merely nostalgia? In The Generals, Thomas E. Ricks answers the question definitively: No, it is not—in no small part because of a widening gulf between performance and accountability. During the Second World War, scores of American generals were relieved of command simply for not being good enough. Today as one American colonel said bitterly during the Iraq War, "As matters stand now, a private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war."

In The Generals we meet great leaders and suspect ones, generals who rose to the occasion and those who failed themselves and their soldiers. Marshall and Eisenhower cast long shadows over this story, but no single figure is more inspiring than Marine General O. P. Smith, whose fighting retreat from the Chinese onslaught into Korea in the winter of 1950 snatched a kind of victory from the jaws of annihilation. But Smith's courage and genius in the face of one of the grimmest scenarios the marines have ever faced only cast the shortcomings of the people who put him there in sharper relief.

If Korea showed the first signs of a culture that neither punished mediocrity nor particularly rewarded daring, the Vietnam War saw American military leadership bottom out. The My Lai massacre is held up as the emblematic event of this dark chapter of our history.

In the wake of Vietnam, a battle for the soul of the US Army was waged with impressive success. It became a transformed institution, reinvigorated from the bottom up. But if the body was highly toned, its head still suffered from familiar problems, resulting in leadership that, from the first Iraq War through to the present, wastactically savvy but strategically obtuse—one that would win battles but would end wars badly.

Thomas E. Ricks has made a close study of America's military leaders for three decades, and in his hands this story resounds with larger meaning: the transmission of values, strategic thinking, the difference between an organization that learns and one that fails. Military history of the highest quality, The Generals is also essential reading for anyone with an interest in the difference between good leaders and bad ones.

popularity
1019
links
    • self:
        • href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/L1BLQAAAA2a/products/dcf03f83-74a2-400d-8823-d7260a506259/metadata
        • type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json
id
dcf03f83-74a2-400d-8823-d7260a506259
starRating
4
images
    • cover:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0887-1/{DCF03F83-74A2-400D-8823-D7260A506259}Img100.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
    • thumbnail:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0887-1/{DCF03F83-74A2-400D-8823-D7260A506259}Img200.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
    • cover150Wide:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0887-1/DCF/03F/83/{DCF03F83-74A2-400D-8823-D7260A506259}Img150.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
    • cover300Wide:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0887-1/DCF/03F/83/{DCF03F83-74A2-400D-8823-D7260A506259}Img400.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
isPublicPerformanceAllowed
False
languages
      • code: en
      • name: English
subjects
      • value: History
      • value: Military
      • value: Nonfiction
publishDateText
10/30/2012
otherFormatIdentifiers
      • type: ISBN
      • value: 9781470817268
mediaType
Audiobook
shortDescription

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Fiasco and The Gamble comes an epic history of the decline of American military leadership from World War II to Iraq.

History has been kinder to the American generals of World War II—Marshall, Eisenhower, Patton, and Bradley—than to the generals of the wars that followed. Is this merely nostalgia? In The Generals, Thomas E. Ricks answers the question definitively: No, it is not—in no small part because of a widening gulf between performance and accountability. During the Second World War, scores of American generals were relieved of command simply for not being good enough. Today as one American colonel said bitterly during the Iraq War, "As matters stand now, a private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war."

In The Generals we meet great leaders and suspect ones, generals who rose to the occasion and those who failed themselves and their soldiers. Marshall...

sortTitle
Generals American Military Command from World War II to Today
crossRefId
911697
subtitle
American Military Command from World War II to Today
publisher
Blackstone Publishing
bisacCodes
      • code: HIS027000
      • description: History / Military / General
      • code: HIS027060
      • description: History / Military / Strategy
      • code: HIS027110
      • description: History / Military / United States
Formats
OverDrive MP3 Audiobook
Works on MP3 Players, PCs, and Macs. Some mobile devices may require an application to be installed.
OverDrive Listen
Need Help?
If you are having problem using our eCollection, please visit our support center.