Colin L. Powell's Reading List

"As I grow older, I am increasingly fascinated by our founding fathers. The challenges they faced and the compromises they made, good and bad, to create a nation have inspired us and people around the world. They all need to go off and read “1787.”"

"It is one of the finest leadership books I’ve ever read and was given to every officer back then. It was always with me and is right in front of me now."

"It was published in 1960, two years after I became an officer. It is a sociological analysis of the military officer at that time."

"Romance, mystery, geography, geology, culture, history, language and fauna, all blended together in one hypnotic book. I couldn’t wait for “Return to Paradise.”"

"I couldn’t wait for “Return to Paradise.” And I read every single one until there were no new ones."

"Ulysses S. Grant’s memoirs and Dean Acheson’s were standards to be inhaled."

"Ulysses S. Grant’s memoirs and Dean Acheson’s were standards to be inhaled."

"“Street Without Joy,” by Bernard Fall, was a textbook for those of us going to Vietnam in the first wave of President Kennedy’s advisers."

"“This Kind of War,” by T. R. Fehrenbach, was a classic history of the Korean War and the cost of unpreparedness."

"Theories and grand ideas are important. But they seldom unfold as planned. People — it is all about people."

"Growing up in the South Bronx, the story of a couple of kids my age growing up on the great prairie of Nebraska was exciting and took me to a place far away from “Fort Apache, the Bronx.” I loved the story of life in a full circle touching on love, adversity, tragedy, hope and optimism."

"I complimented him on the book and shared with him my pride in having a battalion of the 506th Infantry under my brigade command in the 1970s."

"I was also moved by the success of my buddy Gen. Norm Schwarzkopf’s book, “It Doesn’t Take a Hero.”"