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Soldiers
- Great Stories of War and Peace
- Narrated by: Max Hastings, Ric Jerrom
- Length: 24 hrs and 14 mins
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Publisher's Summary
Soldiers is a very personal gathering of sparkling, gripping tales by many writers, about men and women who have borne arms, reflecting best-selling historian Max Hastings’ lifetime of studying war. It rings the changes through the centuries, between the heroic, tragic and comic; the famous and the humble. The nearly 350 stories illustrate vividly what it is like to fight in wars, to live and die as a warrior, from Greek and Roman times through to recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Here you will meet Jewish heroes of the Bible, Rome’s captain of the gate, Queen Boudicca, Joan of Arc, Cromwell, Wellington, Napoleon’s marshals, Ulysses S. Grant, George S. Patton and the modern SAS. There are tales of great writers who served in uniform including Cobbett and Tolstoy, Edward Gibbon and Siegfried Sassoon, Marcel Proust and Evelyn Waugh, George Orwell and George MacDonald Fraser. Here are also stories of the female ‘abosi’ fighters of Dahomey and heroic ambulance drivers of World War I, together with the new-age women soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. The stories reflect a change of mood towards warfare through the ages: though nations and movements continue to inflict terrible violence upon each other, most of humankind has retreated from the old notion of war as a sport or pastime to acknowledge it as the supreme tragedy.
This is a book to inspire in turn fascination, excitement, horror, amazement, occasionally laughter. Max Hastings mingles respect for the courage of those who fight with compassion for those who become their victims, above all civilians, and especially in the 21st century, which some are already calling ‘the Post-Heroic Age’.
Critic Reviews
"A fascinating collection of military stories.... The sort of book that can be picked up at intervals...[but] once tasted, is hard to put down." (Washington Post)
"A gripping new collection from Max Hastings that puts you at the heart of the battle.... Compelling." (Daily Mail)
"An unmissable read." (Sunday Times)
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Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Chris67
- 25-07-2023
Review
Great stories of soldiers through te ages
As much as technology advances, soldiers do not.
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- Michael J. Walsh
- 01-09-2022
Too long and rambling.
The numerous stories were each short but lacked any immediate information or relevance.
The other historical books are excellent but this was not satisfying.
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