We got a couple new good war books in today.
Where Men Win Glory, by Jon Krakauer, examines the life of Pat Tillman. Tillman gave up an NFL career to fight in Afghanistan, and was killed 2 years later. When it came to light that he had likely been killed by friendly fire (and that the circumstances of his death were possibly covered up by the U.S. Army), Tillman’s life and death became central to the national debate over the War on Terror. There have been a couple books about Tillman, but they have mostly been attempts to use his story for political purposes (on both sides of the debate) — this is likely the first balanced (and probably best-written) book on Tillman.
Also in today is The Good Soldiers, by Pulitzer Prize winner David Finkel. Following the Army
Battalion 2-16, Finkel has delivered a ground’s eye view of the 2007 “surge” that was supposed to wrap up the ground war. We’ve been touting Dexter Filkins’ The Forever War as the best book on the War on Terror, but The Good Soldiers may give it a run for its money. When you pick it up, you’ll see blurbs from Rick Atkinson and Steve Coll, but what caught my eye is what Geraldine Brooks had to say:
“From a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer at the height of his powers comes an incandescent and profoundly moving book: powerful, intense, enraging. This may be the best book on war since the Iliad.”
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