Overview

Some have called him “Lawrence of Afghanistan.” To the Pashtun tribesmen he is “Commander Jim,” leader of the “bearded ones.” He is Army Special Forces Major Jim Gant, one of the most charismatic and controversial U.S. commanders of modern memory, a man who changed the face of America’s war in Afghanistan when his critical white paper, “One Tribe at a Time,” went viral at the Pentagon, the White House, and on Capitol Hill in 2009. A decorated Green Beret, Jim argued for embedding autonomous units with tribes across Afghanistan: these American soldiers would live among Afghans for extended periods, not only to train and equip tribal militias, but to fight—and even die—alongside them in battle. He argued that we could earn the trust of the Afghans and transform them into a reliable ally with whom we could defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda networks. The military’s top brass approved the plan and gave Jim the go-ahead to embark on the mission. As correspondent Ann Scott Tyson got to know Jim Gant the man as well as the warrior, she saw that there was a larger story to tell. Ann soon came to share Jim’s vision that Americans and Pashtuns could fight side-by-side and create real change across the region, so she accompanied him to Afghanistan, risking her life to embed with the tribes and chronicle their experience. A war story like no other, an unprecedented account of a warrior who took up the cause of villagers as if it were his own, and of a woman on the front lines of a distant war, American Spartan is an unforgettable tale—and one of the most remarkable and emotionally resonant narratives of war ever published.

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9780062114990

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Reviews

In the half-century since Robin Moore's The Green Berets, no other account of Special Forces at war could match its range and depth and candor-until now. American Spartan will enlighten and disturb readers with its searing honesty... --Dr. Kalev I. Sepp, former Green Beret and coauthor of Weapon of Choice

A momentous account... The overall story is enticing, brutal, and current. -- Publishers Weekly An astonishing new account . . . This book will be read a lot longer than most books about the American war in Afghanistan. It especially will resonate with people interested in Special Forces... We need people like Gant to do real foreign internal defense. -- Tom Ricks Tyson concentrates on Gant's campaign, which produced plenty of fireworks, heroism, suffering and, this being Afghanistan, constant frustration. . . . One of the only satisfying products of a dismally unsatisfying war: this entertaining book. -- Kirkus Reviews American Spartan is a riveting, powerful account of the service of Major Jim Gant, a man seen by many of us as the perfect counterinsurgent . . . Ann Scott Tyson had a ring-side seat . . . and takes us there in this extraordinary, gripping book. -- <B>General David H. Petraeus</B> (US Army, Ret.) This story captivated me like no other I've read on combat action in Afghanistan. I don't condone Jim Gant's every decision or the way he did things, but I do respect the hell out of what he did as a warrior. -- Dalton Fury, author of <I>Kill Bin Laden</I> In the half-century since Robin Moore's The Green Berets, no other account of Special Forces at war could match its range and depth and candor-until now. American Spartan will enlighten and disturb readers with its searing honesty... -- Dr. Kalev I. Sepp, former Green Beret and coauthor of <I>Weapon of Choice</I> The Catch-22 of the Afghanistan War, a mixture of romanticism, fantasy and hard-core dedication. . . . Read this book to savor the rich, candid details of love between a man and a woman, between Afghan and American comrades in battle, and between two cultures. -- Washington Post Masterfully written and moving . . . [American Spartan] is a must read and will stand the test of time. -- Chicago Tribune Tyson raises a host of serious questions about the nature of war, the many aspects of loyalty, and the price paid by America's front-line fighters. -- Christian Science Monitor

Author Information

Ann Scott Tyson is a seasoned war correspondent with years of combat experience going back to the first Gulf War. She has worked for the Christian Science Monitor and the Washington Post, which she left most recently in order to go back to Afghanistan to tell this story. Tyson is a Pulitzer Prize nominee, and graduate of Harvard University with an honors degree in government. She lives outside of Washington, D.C.

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