I'm a Tom Ricks fan -- I very much enjoyed Making the Corps, The Generals and First Principles. He's said on Twitter that he considers this book, Waging a Good War, to be his best. I'm not sure -- I loved Making the Corps -- but Waging a Good War is excellent.

It's an excellent history of a decade and a half of the Civil Rights Movement, but from a fresh and compelling perspective. Ricks is a military correspondent, and he examines the Movement in the light of a series of military-style campaigns. He argues that Movement leadership used a variety of tried and tested techniques also used by militaries preparing campaigns: rigorous training, careful strategic planning, assigning tactical initiative to leaders in the field and on the ground, post-conflict reconciliation and more.

It's a persuasive presentation. It's certainly helped me to understand the Movement in a new way.

He covers desegregation and voting rights campaigns across the South. Rosa Parks, the bus boycotts, the Freedom Rides and Freedom Summer and much more are all here. He writes about Selma and the march across the Edmund Pettis bridge. Montgomery, Nashville, Oxford, and Memphis, including Martin Luther King's assassination, all get the attention they deserve.

He writes about other leaders of the SNCC, SCLC, NAACP, CORE and the Black Panther Party as well. The interplay and interactions of those leaders when their organizations collaborated and competed are interesting.

This would have been a first-rate history of the Movement, just on the detail with which Ricks reports the facts. His analysis of the Movement in terms of military discipline is, as far as I know, brand new. This is a piece of scholarship that advances our understanding of that time, and that effort -- still ongoing!

I loved it. ( )

I was concerned if I would be able to get through this but it turns out that Thomas Ricaks is an incredibly readable writer! This should be in the hands of every person in Congress, followed by a discussion period to make sure they have read it! Living through this period through the news is not the same as reading this investigative book of all that was happening in the Civil Rights Movement--1954 - 1968. Ricks write this in story fashion so that you are following the people and the happenings. Just a remarkable book that I needed to help me fill in the huge gaps in my own knowledge. And yes, perhaps most fascinating was Ricks' effort to tie in how similar the ideas behind the Movement were in relation to military planning. ( )

Waging a Good War: A Military History of the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1968, by Thomas E Ricks, is an excellent history of the movement that concentrates on strategy, planning, and executing the plan.

I was surprised to read that there weren't more books or research papers using the military perspective since it so clearly parallels military thought. Ricks does a great job of bringing the analogy to fruition without resorting to making it sound like a cliche. One of the strengths of the book is the highlighting of lesser known yet vital people involved in coordinating and planning so many diverse actions.

The other major takeaway from the book is one Ricks states clearly, we need to both remember the movement and learn the organizing principles so that we may use them to re-fight the same battles against those who would restrict voting rights as well as reinstitute other oppressive policies.

Highly recommended for everyone from the historian to the activist. We must learn from the past so that we may use those lessons in the present to make a better future. For all!!

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. ( )