Incongruity rests at the core of Thomas E. Ricks’s innovative and provocative book.

Ricks takes us inside the often tense, sometimes fractious inner circle of civil rights leadership. Nor does he sugarcoat the sexism in the movement.

... an intriguing analogy swept along by Ricks’s impressive storytelling skills. It also misses one crucial point. Ricks is certainly right to say that the best militaries have clear goals and tactics that they execute with precision. But that’s true of any successful organization, from the well-run grade school around the corner to the massive corporation that puts a package on your front step the day after you clicked your order into a shopping cart. What sets the military apart, what lies at its core, is its commitment to using violence to pummel its opponents into submission. The Union Army didn’t turn the course of the Civil War at Gettysburg purely because it had an effective plan, but because it littered the ground with Confederate corpses.

Illuminating, engrossing, deeply researched and vividly written.

[A] penetrating study.

A novel interpretation.