Those
of us who have served in war and combat know the most powerful aspect of the
experience that stays with us forever – the bonds forged between Brothers in
Arms through the greatest of adversity.
In
this first-person narrative recounting of Alexander the Great’s conquests of
the known world, Pressfield not only outlines the strategic genius that made
Alex of Macedon so successful, but his leadership style and warrior ethos that
motivated his men to follow him to the ends of the earth. For fans of military
history, strategy, and the bonds forged between warfighters, this book is a
must.
I have always been a soldier. I have known no other life. So begins Alexander’s extraordinary confession on the eve of his greatest crisis of leadership. By turns heroic and calculating, compassionate and utterly merciless, Alexander recounts with a warrior’s unflinching eye for detail the blood, the terror, and the tactics of his greatest battlefield victories. Whether surviving his father’s brutal assassination, presiding over a massacre, or weeping at the death of a beloved comrade-in-arms, Alexander never denies the hard realities of the code by which he lives: the virtues of war. But as much as he was feared by…
It’s
en vogue right now for people to joke about men constantly thinking about the
Roman Empire, and this book may be one of the best insights into why that is.
Taken
from Caesar’s own diaries during his conquest and pacification of Gaul (what is
now Germany, Belgium, France, and even his first conquest to England), this
book outlines his strategy, thinking, and leadership style. Like Alexander the
Great, Caesar fought alongside his men, and would do everything that he could
(like Alexander) to convince enemies to surrender or forgo battles where his
army didn’t have the upper hand to ensure his men weren’t needlessly harmed.
The
passage included within this book of Caesar building a bridge in three days
over a previously impassible river so that his army could cross, only to have
his engineers tear it down after crossing to show the warring tribes why they shouldn’t
pick a fight with his legions is the perfect allegory of why men today think so
often of the feats of ancient Rome and its best leaders.
Originally composed for propaganda purposes, Julius Caesar’s The Gallic Wars (Commentarii de Bello Gallico) is one of the earliest examples of a military science manual, detailing arms technology, tactical maneuvers, battlefield politics, espionage, intelligence and even the role played by luck in ground and sea campaigns.
As
much as I love ancient military history, U.S. history (especially that which
isn’t well-known or written about) is one of my most guilty pleasures.
Manly P.
Hall studiously uses (and cites his sources) texts and historical records that
predate the U.S.A. by hundreds of years to make his case that the founding of
America may have been planned and written far earlier than we’ve been led to
believe.
From
sources claiming that Christopher Columbus may have in fact been a Greek prince
who set out purposely to settle this land of plenty that was already a known
quantity, to well-known historical figures (Shakespeare, Bacon, etc) writing
each other and leaving subtle fingerprints on the earliest settlements of this
nation, unnamed academics and intellectuals who seemed to appear at the most
important moments to tip the scales when our nation’s founding hung in the
balance, and even ancient Greek philosophers discussing this nation-to-be, this
book paints a very different picture of American history than what is taught in
schools.
From the author of the landmark Secret Teachings of All Ages comes two classic works on the mysterious origins and unique mission of America: The Secret Destiny of America and America’s Assignment with Destiny.
Focusing on often-forgotten moments in history, Manley P. Hall proposes that there was a Great Plan put forth one thousand years before our nation’s founding: humanistic and mystical organizations wished for the continent to be the location for an experiment in self-government and religious freedom.
As one of the leading esoteric scholars of the twentieth century, Hall offers an intriguing view of our past, discussing everything…
A modern day Red Dawn with a
Special Operations and technological twist, The
Pact trilogy is the story of a team of former Green Berets coming back
together and joining other freedom fighters across the country to repel an
enemy invasion of their homeland.
