Best "analytical" military history reads

I love and hate military history. At its worst, military history is just a bunch of facts, piled on each other and valorized. I hate campaign accounts. At it's best, military history makes you understand something at a deep level. So, for example, I'm bored by campaign accounts of the Civil War or WWII, but I love to read the "deep why" of both wars.

Does anyone agree? Disagree? Understand that this isn't "my field." (In "my field"—ancient history—I want both the why AND the how.)

If you agree, what books do you recommend?

Tim, do you have a couple of examples of the sort of "deep why" books you're talking about?

I was sorry this discussion didn't get more traction. I too have trouble with military history (or fiction for that matter) because I feel I'm getting lost in the details and not seeing what's really going on. I've been reading Michael Korda's Hero : the life and legend of Lawrence of Arabia, which has extensive discussions of strategy as well as individual battles and I felt like I was starting to get the big picture. I'm wondering if most military history is written for people who have a grasp of the strategy already and want the details. If that's true, did you just develop an instinctive grasp for strategy, or is there some way to learn it?

I suspect there's an interesting discussion to be had here, but I'm afraid the OP leaves me less than sure what Tim's looking for. Would he be looking for a book that said the North won because they had more men and materiel to throw into the meat grinder? One trying explain why the North had more usable manpower and factories in the first place? Or one assessing the relative importance of slavery and states' rights to the outbreak of hostilies? One exploring what kept soldiers fighting? One tracing the development of tactics and the impact of new technology? One about the logistics of keeping Sherman supplied with bullets? Or any of the above, as long as it doesn't get bogged down in day-to-day descriptions of troop movements?

I generally like both sorts of military history books, as per Tim's distinction, as long as they're at least moderately well written. I think, Tim, that if you're interested in the American Revolution, you'd enjoy both David McCullough's 1776 and David Hackett Fischer's Washington's Crossing. In fact, they go well as companion pieces because the Fischer book picks up more or less where the McCullough book leaves off.

Actually, I thought Washington's Crossing made McCullough's book almost superfluous. It was phenomenal--both for on the ground military tactics, and for the "deep why" behind many of the decisions made on both sides. In another totally different time and era, The Ghosts of Cannae is a great example of a book that is both military history and a look at the larger picture, the "deep why" of Rome's rivalry with Carthage. I recommend it all the time to people.

I would strongly suggest you read Field Marshall von Leeb's "Defense". It is a brilliant analysis of Defense relying on events from World War One. Published around 1938 in German as a technical book it was translated into English and published around 1943. I was shocked to read such a brilliant analysis of the concept of defense from the strategic to tactical level. This book was the first recorded example of the benefits of defense and established the concept of defense for military thinking. It was considered a ground breaking analysis at the time of its printing.

Tim, if it's the "deep why" you're after then I hope you've sampled John Keegan, especially A History of Warfare. And two excellent works on the first world war along these lines are Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August, and Margaret MacMillan's latest, The War that Ended Peace.

The initiator of this thread states that his field is ancient history. Surely he would agree that deep knowledge in his field requires the collection of many facts, the making of evaluations and comparisons to really understand what is happening. An accurate appraisal of the ancient world, the culture, religion, the political and military institutions of the various civilizations, the course of their development and collapse, and the like would seem to be required, to get that "deep knowledge."

The same is true if military history is your field. The techniques of war in various ages force us to consider weapons technologies. Can you understand Rome if you don't know how her armies worked. What were the tactics of the Legion, how was it organized and trained, who were its officers and rank and file? A thousand facts help make up that picture, including the details that are available about its various battles. And, just when you have a good picture of the Roman army for you analysis you have to modify it for the era in question, because it changed over time, and you have to consider the same data for its adversaries. That's just for one army of one empire in one era of the ancient world.

So, without being too pedantic, what I am saying is the seemingly endless piling of facts, upon facts, while it is just the beginning, it is the ground work upon which the deeper knowledge rests. Of course this is my field, so I'm not bored by campaign accounts, battle accounts, weapons evaluations, leadership personality profiles, details of soldier life and training, etc. It all builds towards understanding what happened. But to fully understand a war, any war, you have to also delve into the societies waging the war and encounter more facts, that in isolation might seem boring. War is a social phenomenon which apparently takes place in almost all times and places that we know of, and is engaged in by virtually all societies in some form or another, as well. You will have to dig into political and economic and social institutions of the adversary societies engaged in the war. All historians know how deep the rabbit hole can be. Military history is no different.

I agree that Keegan is a good starting place. also take a look at Turner-High, Primitive War, which is sociology rather than history, but essential. I also recommend Victor Davis Hanson, The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern.