Overview

"From the author of the bestselling and award-winning Matterhorn comes a brilliant nonfiction book about war and the psychological and spiritual toll it takes on those who fight. ""I wrote this book primarily to come to terms with my own experience of combat. So far--reading, writing, thinking--that has taken over thirty years."" In 1969, at the age of twenty-three, Karl Marlantes was dropped into the highland jungle of Vietnam, an inexperienced lieutenant in command of a platoon of forty marines who would live or die by his decisions. Marlantes survived, but like many of his brothers in arms, he has spent the last forty years dealing with his war experience. In his first work of nonfiction, Marlantes takes a deeply personal and candid look at what it is like to experience the ordeal of combat, critically examining how we might better prepare our soldiers for war. Just as Matterhorn is already acclaimed a classic of war literature, What It Is Like to Go to War is set to become required reading for anyone--soldier or civilian--interested in this visceral and all too essential part of the human experience."

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9781455114108

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Reviews

Digging as deeply into his own life as he does into the larger sociological and moral issues, Marlantes presents a riveting, powerfully written account of how, after being taught to kill, he learned to deal with the aftermath. -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) Marlantes brings candor and wrenching self-analysis to bear on his combat experiences in Vietnam, in a memoir-based meditation whose intentions are three-fold: to help soldiers-to-be understand what they're in for; to help veterans come to terms with what they've seen and done; and to help policymakers know what they're asking of the men they send into combat. -- New Yorker Karl Marlantes has written a staggeringly beautiful book on combat-what it feels like, what the consequences are, and above all, what society must do to understand it. In my eyes he has become the preeminent literary voice on war of our generation...I'm sure he will literally save lives. -- Sebastian Junger, New York Times bestselling author Bronson Pinchot does an outstanding job of presenting Karl Marlantes' memoir of war, trauma, and recovery...Pinchot deftly follows as Marlantes shifts from well-told battle stories to policy analysis, then to Jungian archetypes, and back again. His tone is sometime matter-of-fact and sometimes passionate (almost shouting) in marvelous synchrony with the author's words. -- AudioFile

"""Digging as deeply into his own life as he does into the larger sociological and moral issues, Marlantes presents a riveting, powerfully written account of how, after being taught to kill, he learned to deal with the aftermath."" -- ""Publishers Weekly (starred review)"" ""Marlantes brings candor and wrenching self-analysis to bear on his combat experiences in Vietnam, in a memoir-based meditation whose intentions are three-fold: to help soldiers-to-be understand what they're in for; to help veterans come to terms with what they've seen and done; and to help policymakers know what they're asking of the men they send into combat."" -- ""New Yorker "" Bronson Pinchot does an outstanding job of presenting Karl Marlantes' memoir of war, trauma, and recovery...Pinchot deftly follows as Marlantes shifts from well-told battle stories to policy analysis, then to Jungian archetypes, and back again. His tone is sometime matter-of-fact and sometimes passionate (almost shouting) in marvelous synchrony with the author's words. -- ""AudioFile"" Karl Marlantes has written a staggeringly beautiful book on combat-what it feels like, what the consequences are, and above all, what society must do to understand it. In my eyes he has become the preeminent literary voice on war of our generation...I'm sure he will literally save lives. -- ""Sebastian Junger, New York Times bestselling author"""

Author Information

Karl Marlantes, a cum-laude graduate of Yale University and Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, was a marine in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation Medals for valor, two Purple Hearts, and ten air medals. His novel Matterhorn and his nonfiction book What It Is Like to Go to War, both based on his combat experience, are also both New York Times bestsellers. Bronson Pinchot, an Audie Award-winning narrator and Audible's Narrator of the Year for 2010, received his education at Yale University, which filled out what he had already received at his mother's knee in the all-important areas of Shakespeare, Greek art and architecture, and the Italian Renaissance. He restores Greek Revival buildings and appears in television, film, and on stage whenever the pilasters and entablatures overwhelm him.

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