Not the military stuff but Arab tribal society, read "The First Muslim" by Lesley Hazleton, about Arab society around the year 600. It's an absolute eye-opener.

Thanks for the tip about that book!

I'm case it's helpful to anyone, here's one review of it: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2vxts5/comme...

Seems like a tough area of history to be certain about.

It's Art of War.

"18. All warfare is based on deception. "

AoW is one of the most important historical treatises, it's not just 'something that was written in history', maybe the oldest true 'textbooks' of objective knowledge, and also realpolitik. Also there's hints of metaphysics in there, in a way. It absolutely stands up today.

The very first work of the Western Cannon: Trojan Horse.

Information / espionage and deception has made most of history; Hannibal, Caesar, Alexander etc.

A fun exercise would be to look at battles of history from the lens of information warfare and deception, and contemplate the outcome without it.

Canon, not cannon. Then again, since this is about war, maybe it should be cannon. Lol.