Read Different, Think Different. Books that will change how you view national security. Armed Forces Journal, V. 149, N 1, August 2008, pp 12-15.

Col. Thomas X. Hammes, USMC (Ret) author of the The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century, also authored the cover story of the August issue of the Armed Forces Journal. He lists some books that he says will change how you view national security, and I would add will change how you view the world in general. His list is:

Chaos: Making a New Science, by James Glick
Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means, by Albert-Laszio Barabasi
Commander’s Appreciation and Campaign Design, Army Pamphlet 525-5-500
Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software, by Steve Johnson
The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (Management of Innovation and Change Series), by Clayton M. Christensen
The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations, by James Surowiecki
The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently…and Why, by Richard E. Nisbett
Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity (Helix Books), by John H. Holland
The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations, by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams
The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, by Ray Kurzweil