Colonel John Boyd (USAF) told people that they had a choice: they could be somebody or they could do something. Being somebody meant playing by the rules and getting promoted. Doing something was John Boyd speciality. With virtually no power other than his convictions and persuasiveness he changed air combat, instigated the F-16 fighter programme, changed Marine Corps tactics and inspired the war-winning right hook during the Gulf War. Boyd: How a fighter pilot changed the art of war is the well-written story of how he did it. Not only for aviation enthusiasts and military historians (who must read it), this book is interesting to a general audience and, I think, particularly useful for managers.
See my earlier post about Boyd’s Patterns of Conflict briefing.
View Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War
on Amazon.
Michael Collins went to the moon with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin but didn’t land. Perhaps the most famous man you’ve never heard of, he circled the moon alone in the command module while they explored the surface. His autobiography - not ghosted - is the best astronaut book I’ve read. I think anyone would enjoy this, not just space geeks like me. It’s lively, approachable, human as it chronicles the greatest human adventure. It’s funny at times too, which is a delightful change from the po-faced earnestness of many space books. Highly recommended.
View Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut’s Journeys
on Amazon.
Tom Jones is a veteran of four Space Shuttle missions. This book is a first hand account of what the right stuff looked like in the 80s and 90s. It is well written and, unlike many astronaut memoirs, not ghosted. Jones succeeds in describing the experience of space flight and putting the reader in the spacecraft with him. Less hagiographic than the Apollo-era biographies, it still evokes the awe and difficulty of space flight.
View Sky Walking: An Astronaut’s Memoir
on Amazon
Count Belisarius
by Robert Graves is a fictional biography of a historical general. It has all the verve of I, Claudius but it is set in a much less familiar world - 6th century Byzantium and its eastern empire. Equal parts love story, military history and court intrigue, this novel is at turns exciting, moving and thought-provoking. Highly recommended.
Buy Count Belisarius on Amazon
Colonel John Boyd (USAF) told people that they had a choice: they could be somebody or they could do something. Being somebody meant playing by the rules and getting promoted. Doing something was John Boyd speciality. With virtually no power other than his convictions and persuasiveness he changed air combat, instigated the F-16 fighter programme, changed Marine Corps tactics and inspired the war-winning right hook during the Gulf War. Boyd: How a fighter pilot changed the art of war is the well-written story of how he did it. Not only for aviation enthusiasts and military historians (who must read it), this book is interesting to a general audience and, I think, particularly useful for managers.
