Bevin Alexander has 4 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 4 narrators, with an average listener rating of 5★ across 6 ratings. The most-rated is How Great Generals Win.
How Great Generals Win
Summary
Throughout history great generals have done what their enemies have least expected. Instead of direct, predictable attack, they have deceived, encircled, outflanked, out-thought, and triumphed over often superior armies commanded by conventional thinkers. Collected here are the stories of the most successful commanders of all time, among them Hannibal, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Stonewall Jackson, Sherman, Rommel, Mao Zedong, who have demonstrated, at their own points in history, the strategic and tactical genius essential for victory. Ironically this virtue does not come naturally to military organizations, since more often than not the straight-ahead, narrow-thinking soldier will be promoted over his more lateral-minded, devious counterpart. Yet when the latter gets control, the results may be spectacular.
©1993 Bevin Alexander (P)1995 Blackstone Audiobooks
Inside the Nazi War Machine
Summary
In January of 1940, France possessed the most powerful army in Europe. Under orders of the Fuhrer, the German General Staff reluctantly drew up a lackluster plan of invasion. Yet it was the audacious scheme of three of Hitler’s top generals that brought down France’s military force, Rather than simply move troops to engage the enemy, for the first time they would unleash the tank and drive straight into the heart of their foe. Inside the Nazi War Machine explores how this new tactic – the blitzkrieg – gave control of Europe to the brutal Nazi regime and set the stage for World War II.
©2010 Bevin Alexander (P)2010 Oasis Audio
Macarthur's War
Summary
Douglas MacArthur famously said there is no substitute for victory... As a United States general, he had an unparalleled genius for military strategy, and it was under his leadership that Japan was rebuilt into a democratic ally after World War II. But MacArthur carried out his zero-sum philosophy both on and off the battlefield. During the Korean War, in defiance of President Harry S. Truman and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he pushed for an aggressive confrontation with Communist China - a position intended to provoke a wider war, regardless of the cost or consequences. MacArthur's ambition to stamp out Communism across the globe was in direct opposition to President Truman, who was much more concerned with containing the Soviet Union than confronting Red China. The infamous clash between the two leaders was not only an epic turning point in history, but the ultimate struggle between civil and military power in the United States. While other U.S. generals have challenged presidential authority-from Zachary Taylor in the Mexican War and George B. McClellan in the Civil War to General Stanley A. McChrystal in Afghanistan-no other military leader has ever so brazenly attempted to dictate national policy. In MacArthur's War, Bevin Alexander details MacArthur's military and political battles, from the alliances he made with Republican leaders to the threatening ultimatum he delivered to China against orders - the action that directly led to his dismissal on April 11, 1951.
©2013 Bevin Alexander (P)2013 Tantor
Sun Tzu at Gettysburg
Summary
Ten major battles or campaigns that could have been won by using the principles of The Art of War. Imagine the impact on world history if Robert E. Lee had listened to General Longstreet at Gettysburg and withdrawn to higher ground instead of sending Pickett uphill against the entrenched Union line. Or if Napolon, at Waterloo, had avoided mistakes he'd never made before. The advice that would have changed the outcome of these crucial battles is found in a book on strategy written centuries before Christ was born. Lee, Napoleon, and Adolf Hitler never read Sun Tzu's The Art of War; the book only became widely available in the West in the mid-20th century. But as Bevin Alexander shows, Sun Tzu's maxims often boil down to common sense, in a particularly pure and clear form. The lessons of contemporary military practice, or their own experience, might have guided these commanders to success. It is stunning to see, however, the degree to which the precepts laid down 2,400 years ago apply to warfare of the modern era.
©2011 Bevin Alexander (P)2011 Audible, Inc.