Category: Civilization, History, and Anthropology

Curt Doolittle’s Reading ListReading List

“The Great Books Of The Aristocracy: The Evolution of the Nature Law of Sovereigns”

The ruling class under the monarchies never produced a canon of it’s own: a collection of works whose content is politically scientific and rationally written. The rulers simply did their job with tradition, pragmatism and familial wisdom. So a rich, fully articulated analysis of the western social and political system has been unavailable to us, other than Plato’s – and he was tragically wrong.

There have been a number of ‘Great Books’ lists, in an effort to develop a western, or even world canon1 . These lists start by sharing a desire for freedom, and at some point for democracy, and finally, evolve to a desire for communism. They are not scientific, but merely moral appeals for power. As such they are sentimental and political propaganda and little more than efforts to seize political power or seize assets from the aristocracy by promoting redistribution, collectivism and democracy, using derivatives of Christian arguments.

This list is my attempt to cover the body of ‘scientific’ political thought: writing that is based upon the record of what humans actually do, rather than what we fantasize that they should do. I also try to be consistent in avoiding appeals to sentiments, and instead, limit selections to rational or scientific arguments. I’ve tried to select books that the inquiring reader can wade through, and avoided the most abstract texts wherever possible. (The distraction of Bohm Bahwerk for example.) And I have tried to provide selections from a breadth of fields which serves to prevent the errors inherent in selective specialization. And because I believe that practical wisdom is the result of accumulated general knowledge and the further synthesis of common principles regardless of their field of origin.

Included are: Art, Mythology, History, The Behavior Of Man, Philosophy, Politics, Economics, Law, and War. These are, together, the technologies of cooperation and conflict resolution.

Jayman’s Human Biodiversity Reading List

Jayman and HBD Chick’s Recommended Reading list is also here. We really ought to just make a book out of readings from it.

Our Digital Library Is Huge.

We capture these works in digital form, as often as possible. If you cannot obtain them from a bookstore or a library you can find them in our digital library. (Which is enormous)

Visit Our Library

The Short List: The Current State of Knowledge

OUR MINDS

Jeff Hawkins: On Intelligence (The Brain)

Daniel Kahneman: Thinking, Fast and Slow (The Mind)

Jonathan Haidt: The Righteous Mind (The Moral Intuition)

Francis Fukuyama: Trust (The Political Objective)

MAN

Matt Ridley: The Red Queen

Dale Petersen: Demonic Males

William Tucker: Marriage and Civilization

Nicholas Wade: A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History

Peter Turchin: Ultrasociety: How 10,000 Years of War Made Humans the Greatest Cooperators on Earth

Garett Jones: Hive Mind: How Your Nation�s IQ Matters So Much More Than Your Own

THE WEST (Sovereignty)

Ricardo Duchesne: The Uniqueness of Western Civilization

JP Mallory: In Search of Indo Europeans

David W. Anthony: The Horse, the Wheel, and Language

John Keegan: A History Of Warfare

Joseph Campbell : The Hero’s Journey

Karen Armstrong : The Great Transformation

Eric H. Cline: 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed

Bryan Ward-Perkins: The Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization

Emmet Scott: Mohammed and Charlemagne Revisited.

Emmanuel Todd: The Explanation of Ideology

Emmanuel Todd: The Invention of Europe

THE RIGHTS OF ANGLO SAXONS (Contractualism)

Edwin Vieira Jr. The Sword and Sovereignty: The Constitutional Principles of “the Militia of the Several States” (multimedia only – Trying to find pdf.)

Fritz Kern: Kingship and Law in the Middle Ages

Alan MacFarlane : Origins of English Individualism

Daniel Hannan: Inventing Freedom

David Hackett Fischer: Albion‘s Seed: Four British Folkways in America

Gregory Clark: A Farewell to Alms

THE NATURAL COMMON LAW (Contractual Constitutionalism)

Milsom: Natural History of the Common Law.

Plucknett: A Concise History Of The Common Law.

Hayek’s: The Constitution of Liberty

20th CENTURY CONTEXT

Stephen Hicks : Explaining Postmodernism

Hans Hoppe: Democracy The God That Failed

Working Topics

LIES

Dallas Denery: The Devil Wins: A History of Lying from the Garden of Eden to the Enlightenment

Thomas Carson: Lying and Deception: Theory and Practice

Jennifer Mather Saul: Lying, Misleading, and What is Said

Clancy Martin: The Philosophy of Deception 1st Edition

Herbert Fingarette: Self-Deception

Brooke Harrington: Deception: From Ancient Empires to Internet Dating

Edward Bernays: Propaganda

Jason Stanley: How Propaganda Works Hardcover

Jeremy Elkins: Truth and Democracy

David Livingstone: Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others

Daniel Nanavati: A Brief History Of Lies

DUPLICITY

(iffy stuff I think is largely nonsense)

Michael Hoffman: Judaism Discovered

Removed:

I am a little iffy on Pinker despite the fact that he fired the first salvo against pseudoscience in the social sciences. I can’t tell where his defense of market for his books begins and his academic honesty ends. Better angels is not true for the reasons he states. And that really troubles me.

Steven Pinker: The Better Angels of Our Nature

Steven Pinker : The Blank Slate

I am a little iffy on harris because I have figured out his biases and errors, and his book on lying is too weak to include versus the alternatives.

Sam Harris : Lying

THE CANON

I. POLITICS

Aristotle: Ethics, Politics

Machiavelli: The Prince, Discourses

Burke: Reflections On The Revolution In France

Hamilton: The Federalist Papers

Bastiat: The Law

Sorel: Reflections On Violence

Mosca: Ruling Class

Michels: Political Parties

Burnham: The Machiavellians

Hayek: The Road To Serfdom, The Constitution Of Liberty

Mancur Olson: The Logic Of Collective Action

Andrew Heywood : Political Ideologies : An Introduction.

POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY

David Hume: A Treatise of Human Nature, Essays Moral and Political, An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Locke: Two Treatise on Government

Adam Smith: The Theory of Moral Sentiments, The Wealth of Nations

Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America

Weber: Economy And Society, Essays in Sociology

Pareto: Mind And Society

Hayek: Individualism And Economic Order

Veblen: The Theory of the Leisure Class

Schumpeter: Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy

Durkhiem: Division Of Labor In Society

Hoppe: The Economics And Ethics Of Private Property, Democracy The God That Failed

POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY

Thomas Sowell: A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles

Thomas Sowell: Intellectuals and Society

Thomas Sowell: The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation As a Basis for Social Policy.

Thomas Sowell: Knowledge and Decisions

II. THE RECORD OF MAN’S ACTIONS

HISTORICAL ANALYSIS AND CRITICISMHISTORY

Gregory Clark: A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World

Huntington: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

Fukuyama: The Origins Of Political Order

Carroll Quigley: The Evolution Of Civilizations

Braudel: A History of Civilizations

Durant: Lessons Of History (Everything really)

Toynbee: A Study Of History

BIRTH

Ricardo Duchesne: The Uniqueness of Western Civilization

Emmanuel Todd: The Invention Of Europe (French Only)

Emmanuel Todd: The Causes of Progress

McNeil: The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community

McNeil: Plagues and Peoples

Diamond: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

Pomeranz: The Great Divergence (Anything he has written.)

DECLINE

Acemoglu: Why Nations Fail

Gibbon: The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire

Spengler: The Death Of the West

Yockey: The enemy Of Europe, The Enemy Of Our Enemies, Imperium

Burnham: Suicide Of The West

Buchannan: The Decline Of The West

Whittaker Chambers: Witness

CONFLICT

Keegan: A History Of Warfare (Anything he has written.)

Victor Davis Hanson’s “The Other Greeks”, Carnage and Culture (Anything he has written)

Sir Lawrence Freedman: Strategy: A History

RELIGION

Karen Armstrong: The Great Transformation

James C. Russell: The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity

MORALITY

Emmanuel Todd: The Explanation of Ideology

Robert Nisbet: The Quest for Community

Jonathan Haidt: The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion

KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY

Niall Ferguson: (Everything he has written)

Murray: Human Accomplishment (Everything he has written)

Mokyr: The Gifts Of Athena, The Lever Of Riches (Anything he has written)

CYCLE THEORY – HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF

Strauss and Howe: Generations, The Fourth Turning

FUTURE GEOPOLITICS

Christopher Hayes: Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy

Fareed Zakaria: The Post-American World: Release 2.0

Joseph S. Nye Jr.:The Future of Power [Kindle Edition]

Samuel P. Huntington: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order [Kindle Edition]

Joseph Tainter), Colin Renfrew:The Collapse of Complex Societies (New Studies in Archaeology)

Fred Guterl:The Fate of the Species: Why the Human Race May Cause Its Own Extinction and How We Can Stop It

SOCIOLOGY

Banfield: The Unheavenly City, The Moral Basis of a Backward Society

Axelrod: The Evolution Of Cooperation

Mancur Olson: The Rise and Decline Of Nations

Edward O. Wilson: The Social Conquest of Earth [Kindle Edition]

Gregory Cochran, Henry Harpending: The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution

Daron Acemoglu, James Robinson: Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty [Kindle Edition]

Peter L. Berger, Thomas Luckmann:The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge [Paperback]

Bryan Caplan: The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies [Hardcover]

Samuel P. Huntington: Political Order in Changing Societies (The Henry L. Stimson Lectures Series) [Paperback]

Niall Ferguson: Civilization: The West and the Rest

Charles Murray: Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950

Tim Harford:Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure [Kindle Edition]

III. HUMAN BEINGS

EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY

Cavalli-Svorza; The Great Human Diasporas

Cochran & Harpending: The 10,000 Year Explosion

Richard Dawkins:The Selfish Gene:30th Anniversary edition

Jared M. Diamond: The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal (P.S.) [Paperback]

Robert Axelrod: The Evolution of Cooperation: Revised Edition

Matt Ridley: The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature [Kindle Edition]

Christopher Ryan, Cacilda Jetha: Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality

Dale Peterson, Richard Wrangham: Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence

Simon Baron-Cohen : The Essential Difference: Male And Female Brains And The Truth About Autism

Steven Goldberg : Why Men Rule: A Theory of Male Dominance Paperback

INTELLIGENCE

Flynn: What Is Intelligence?

Sternberg/Kaufman : The Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence

Earl Hunt: Human Intelligence

Jeff Hawkins: On Intelligence

Richard Lynn: The Global Bell Curve: Race, IQ, and Inequality Worldwide [Perfect Paperback]

Richard Lynn, Tatu Vanhanen:IQ and the Wealth of Nations (Human Evolution, Behavior, and Intelligence)

Essays:

The humorous essays of “Le Griffe Du Lion” (Prof Robert Gordon. Some subtle statistical errors, but in general useful. His smart fraction theory is being explored by others at the moment.)

EVOLUTIONARY MORALITY

THE MIND

Daniel Kahneman: Thinking, Fast and Slow

Steven Pinker: How the Mind Works

Ramachandran: The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Quest for What Makes Us Human

Steven Pinker: The Language Instinct: How The Mind Creates Language (P.S.) [Kindle Edition]

Steven Pinker: The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature

Steven Pinker: The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

Jonathan Haidt: The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion

BELIEF

(From Amazon – I don’t spent time on this subject but others do.)

“The Belief Instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life”

“Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior” by Leonard Mlodinow,

“Society without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment” by Phil Zuckerman,

“The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies—How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths” by Michael Shermer,

“SuperSense: Why We Believe in the Unbelievable” by Bruce M. Hood,

“The Brain and the Meaning of Life” by Paul Thagard.

“Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain” by David Eagleman

IV. SOCIAL MAN: COOPERATION AND TRUST

SOCIAL CLASS

Paul Fussell: Class: A Guide Through the American Status System

Richard J. Herrnstein, Charles Murray: Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life

Robert Gordon (La Griffe Du Lion): “Smart Fraction Theory” (Methodological flaws aside, the theory is insightful) and Smart Fraction Theory II

Charles Murray: Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 [Hardcover]

Stanley, DankoThe Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy

Stanley: The Millionaire Mind

Nassim Nicholas Taleb: The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable Fragility”

Mandelbrot, Hudson:The Misbehavior of Markets: A Fractal View of Financial Turbulence

TRUST

Harrison, Huntington: Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress

Francis Fukuyama: Trust: The Social Virtues and The Creation of Prosperity [Paperback]

Sam Harris: Lying

Joel Kotkin: Tribes

Frank Salter: Risky Transactions: Trust, Kinship and Ethnicity; On Genetic Interests

Huntington: The Clash Of Civilizations

Becker: The Economic Approach To Human Behavior

THE HANJAL LINE – MATING PATTERNS (Trying to trim this section down)

SUMMARY: Kevin MacDonald “What Makes Western Culture Unique?”

John Hajnal, (1965): European marriage pattern in historical perspective en D.V. Glass and D.E.C. Eversley, (eds.) Population in History, Arnold, Londres

Ansley J. Coale & Roy Treadway, (1986): The Decline of Fertility in Europe

David Levine, (1977): Family Formation in an Age of Nascent Capitalism

Wally Seccombe (1992): A Millennium of Family Change, Feudalism to Capitalism in Northwestern Europe, Verso.

Göran Therborn, (2004): Between Sex and Power, Family in the World, 1900–2000, Routledge Press (see pp. 144–45).

Mary S. Hartman (2004): The Household and the Making of History, A Subversive View of the Western Past, Cambridge University Press.

David I Kertzer and Marzio Barbagli. 2001. The history of the European family. New Haven: Yale University Press. p xiv

David Levine (1977): Family Formation in an Age of Nascent Capitalism, Academic Press. 152

Peter Laslett: The World We Have Lost.

Stephanie Coontz: Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage.

De Moor, Tine and Jan Luiten van Zanden. 2009. Girl power: the European marriage pattern and labour markets in the North Sea region in the late medieval and early modern period.

MANORIALISM

Michael Mitterauer: Why Europe?: The Medieval Origins of Its Special Path

Bloch, Marc (1989-11-16). Feudal Society: Vol 1: The Growth and Ties of Dependence (2 ed.).

Bloch, Marc (1989-11-16). Feudal Society: Vol 2: Social Classes and Political Organisation (2 ed.). (“Feudal Society”, in its modern sense was coined in Marc Bloch’s 1939-40 books. He emphasized the distinction between economic manorialism which preceded feudalism and survived it, and political and social feudalism, or seigneurialism.)

Prosper Boissonnade; Eileen Power, Lynn White; Life and work in medieval Europe : the evolution of medieval economy from the fifth to the fifteenth century.

Henri Pirenne: Economic and Social History of Medieval Europe. Harcourt Brace & Company.

Articles:

^ Peter Sarris, “The Origins of the Manorial Economy: New Insights from Late Antiquity”, The English Historical Review 119 (April 2004:279-311).

^ Horn, “On the Origins of the Medieval Cloister” Gesta 12.1/2 (1973:13-52), quote p. 41.

^ Andrew Jones, “The Rise and Fall of the Manorial System: A Critical Comment” The Journal of Economic History 32.4 (December 1972:938-944) p. 938; a comment on D. North and R. Thomas, “The rise and fall of the manorial system: a theoretical model”, The Journal of Economic History 31 (December 1971:777-803).

^ C.R. Whittaker, “Circe’s pigs: from slavery to serfdom in the later Roman world”, Slavery and Abolition 8 (1987:87-122.

^ Averil Cameron, The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity AD 395-600, 1993:86.

RACE AND RACISM

Michael Levin: Why Race Matters:Race Differences and What They Mean

J. Philippe Rushton: Race, Evolution and Behavior

Gobineau; The Inequality of Human Races

V. LAW

LAW

Core:

– Milsom’s Natural History of the Common Law.

– Plucknett’s A Concise History Of The Common Law.

– Hayek’s The Constitution of Liberty

More:

Bastiat: The Law

Hayek: Law, Legislation, and Liberty

Leoni: Freedom and the Law

Benson: Enterprise of Law

Randy E. Barnett: The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the Rule of Law

Richard Epstein: How Progressives Rewrote the Constitution, Simple Rules for a Complex World.

LEGAL CODES

The Code Of Hammurabi

(UNDONE: list the other early laws here)

The Athenian Constitution

Roman Law

The Anglo Saxon Codes

Magna Carta

The Articles Of Confederation

The US Declaration Of Independence, Constitution, and Original Bill of Rights.

VI. ECONOMICS AND HUMAN COOPERATION

ENTRY LEVEL ECONOMICS

Bernard Mandelville: The Fable Of The Bees: Private Vice Public Benefit

Leonard Read: “I, Pencil”

Hazlitt: Economics In One Lesson

Thomas Sowell: Basic Economics

ECONOMICS AND POLICY

Aristotle: Topics

Xenophon: Economics

Cantillon: Essai Sur la Nature du Commerce en Général.

David Hume: A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-1740), the Enquiries concerning Human Understanding (1748) and concerning the Principles of Morals (1751)

Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834),An Essay on the Principle of Population.

David Ricardo (1772–1823),

Adam Smith (1723–1790).

Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850);

William Stanley Jevons (1835–1882).

(undone)

THE KNOWLEDGE AND CALCULATION PROBLEMS

Popper: Sources of Knowledge And Ignorance

Popper: The Open Universe

Taleb: The Black Swan, Fooled By Randomness

Mandelbrot: ??

(undone)

(undone: the essays on the socialist calculation debate, the essay on the incentive priority)

THE PROBLEM OF ABSTRACTIONS

Religions:

States:

– Nock: Our Enemy, The State

– Rothbard: Man, Economy and State

Corporations:

Abstract Property Types (Options)

(UNDONE)

VII. PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY

PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY

Montaigne: Essays

Hazlitt: Foundations Of Morality

Henry: In Defense Of Elitism

(undone)

RELATED

Robert Greene: The 48 Laws Of Power

Dale Carnegie: How to Win Friends & Influence People (Mass Market Paperback)

VIII. EDUCATION

Inside American Education, Thomas Sowell

The Conspiracy of Ignorance, Martin Gross

Real Education, Charles Murray

The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America, Charlotte Iserbyt

IX. THE NARRATIVE ARTS

ART

Anthony F. Janson: History Of Art

Paul Johnson: Art: A New History

Ayn Rand: The Romantic Manifesto

MYTHOLOGY

Anon: Gilgamesh

Euripides:Cyclops, Heracles, Alcestis, Hecuba, Bacchae, Orestes, Andromache, Medea, Ion, Hippolytus, Helen, Iphigenia at Aulis

Aristophanes : The Birds, The Clouds, The Frogs, Lysistrata, The Knights, The Wasps, The Assemblywomen

Aesop’s Fables

Homer: The Illiad and the Odyssey

Virgil: The Aneid

Plutarch: Life of Alexander

Julius Caesar: The Conquest Of Gaul

Anon: Beowulf

Mallory: Le Morte De Arthur (England)

The Carolingian Cycle (The Matter Of France)

The Nibelungenlied (Germany)

The Norse Sagas (Norse)

Grimm: Grimm’s Fairy Tales

Spenser: Prothalamion; The Faerie Queene

Scott: Ivanhoe (Scott)

Tolkein: The Hobbit, The Lord Of The Rings (English)

Heinlein: Starship Troopers (American)

Herbert: Dune (American)

PLAYS

(Undone)

NARRATIVE ANALYSIS

Bullfinch: Mythology

Campbell: The Hero’s Journey, The Hero With A Thousand Faces

Frazer: The Golden Bough

Nietzsche: The Birth Of Tragedy

HISTORY

Herodotus

Livy

Plutarch

Tacitus

Kagan: The Peleponnesian War

(undone)

X. WAR

THE WAR OF STATES

Sun Tzu: The Art Of War

The History of the Peloponnesian War: Revised Edition (Penguin Classics)

Julius Ceasar: Caesar’s Commentaries: On the Gallic War And on the Civil War

Julius Ceasar: The Conquest of Gaul

Machiavelli: The Prince

Machiavelli: The Art Of War

Carl Van Clausewitz: On War (2G Second Generation Warfare)

Antoine De Jomini: The Art Of War

Moltke: The Art Of War

Mao Tse-Tung: The Art of War (4G Fourth Generation Warfare)

B. H. Liddell Hart: Strategy: Second Revised Edition (Meridian)

Michael Handel: Masters of War: Classical Strategic Thought

Martin van Creveld: Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton (Paperback)

Robert Leonhard: The Art of Maneuver: Maneuver Warfare Theory and Airland Battle (3G Third Generation Warfare)

John Keegan: The Price of Admiralty: The Evolution of Naval Warfare

IDEOLOGICAL GUERILLA WAR

Martin van Creveld: The Rise and Decline of the State, Transformation of War, The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century

ADDITIONAL WORKS OF GENERAL THEORY

Michael Handel: Masters of War: Classical Strategic Thought

Bevin Alexander: How Wars Are Won: The 13 Rules of War from Ancient Greece to the War on Terror

Bevin Alexander: How Great Generals Win (Paperback)

John Keegan: The Mask of Command

Martin van Creveld: Command in War (everything he has written)

John Keegan: The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme

Donald Kagan: On the Origins of War: And the Preservation of Peace (everything he has written)

WORKS ON REBELLION

Étienne de La Boétie: The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude

The IRA Green Book

The Marxist Mini Manual

The Protocols Of Zion

The Ten Planks Of The Communist Manifesto

Michael Jacoby Brown: Building Powerful Community Organizations

Saul Alinsky: Rules for Radicals

Rinku Sen: Stir It Up (Lessons in Community Organizing & Advocacy)

Randy Shaw: The Activist’s Handbook

Joe Szakos and Kristin Layng Szakos: Lessons from the Field: Organizing in Rural Communities

ADDITIONAL WORKS OF HISTORY3

Donald W. Engels: Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army

The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire: From the First Century A.D. to the Third

John Keegan: A History of Warfare (Everything he has written.)

Archer Jones: The Art of War in Western World

Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age

Donald Kagan: (everything he has written)

ANALYTICAL METHODS

Two-Person Game Theory

Differential Games: A Mathematical Theory with Applications to Warfare and Pursuit, Control and Optimization

Numbers, prediction, and war: Using history to evaluate combat factors and predict the outcome of battles

Attrition: Forecasting Battle Casualties and Equipment Losses in Modern War