This week I finished:

The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl, by Timothy Egan: This book follows up Cadillac Desert. Both recount Americans believing themselves independent, especially of government, settling/colonizing new territory.

They believed they could dominate nature. They believed their science and technology would enable them to do new things. They believed more people solved more problems.

Then nature didn’t behave how they predicted. They end up asking for government support that helps them but never ends. They don’t reflect on what caused their problems, in this case nearly a decade of deadly dust storms blowing topsoil away from multiple states worth of land.

The book is compelling and engaging. I recommend it for a possible preview at how our attempts to use science and technology to dominate nature today. In our case, we’re creating materials like plastics and chemicals that disrupt hormones, cause cancer, create addiction, and more; calling energy that isn’t clean, green, or renewable “clean,” “green,” and “renewable;” professing that more people solve more problems; and so on. Back then, they said “the rain follows the plow” with the same conviction as us today and no more or less evidence.

I’m also watching the Ken Burns documentary The Dust Bowl to follow this book up, as well as other online resources.

Here’s a picture of one of the dust storms on a wrecked landscape. We could create such disaster today, or rather already are, which is why I’m working on sustainability leadership. I recommend you do too.

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Leading Marines, by the US Marine Corps, forward to 2014 edition by Jame F. Amos General, U.S. Marine Corps, Commandant of the Marine Corps: I read this book after podcast guest and retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General Paul Van Riper recommended I read Warfighting. He also endorsed my book Initiative with one of the most beautiful endorsements I’ve read. I presume retired Marine Corps Lieutenant Generals don’t write fluff or flattery, but only what they mean.

We kept in touch after our podcast conversations. Among other topics, I asked him about Von Clausewitz’s On War, which I wanted to learn about. I saw the work as relevant to strategy and leadership. He recommended several readings. Warfighting was one, which I found tremendously useful. It’s quick to read and a free download. After reading it, I go back to it often and have recommended it many times.

Searching for it led me to find Leading Marines, also a free download. Here’s the best place I found to read the most recent version (or just the frame with the document). I take for granted readers here can tell these Marine Corps documents aren’t written for all situations and can translate what they can into their domain.

I can’t recommend Warfighting or Leading Marines enough for leaders at any stage of their development.

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