The Centurions, Jean Larteguy
The Centurions, Jean Larteguy
List: $29.99 | Sale: $21.00
Club: $14.99

The Centurions

Author: Jean Larteguy, Robert D. Kaplan

Narrator: Paul Woodson

Unabridged: 17 hr 48 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 04/24/2018


Synopsis

When The Centurions was first published in 1960, readers were riveted by the thrilling account of soldiers fighting for survival in hostile environments. They were equally transfixed by the chilling moral question the novel posed: how to fight when the "age of heroics is over." As relevant today as it was half a century ago, The Centurions is a gripping military adventure, an extended symposium on waging war in a new global order, and an essential investigation of the ethics of counterinsurgency. Featuring a foreword by renowned military expert Robert D. Kaplan, this important wartime novel will again spark debate about controversial tactics in hot spots around the world.

About Jean Larteguy

Jean Larteguy (1920-2011) is the pen name of Jean Pierre Lucien Osty, who served as a soldier in Korea and North Africa before becoming a distinguished journalist and novelist.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Trish

How many times has the story recounted in this classic novel about war been writ in the history of mankind? Ask our soldiers to find a way to save the nation and they do, only to be blamed for their actions in the end. The thing about violence is that it destroys the actor and the acted-upon. There......more

Goodreads review by Jim

According to Wikipedia The Centurions was one of the most popular novels in France in the 1960s, and its author "partly responsible for a revival of novel reading in France where, at the time … 38% of adults had never read a book." I'd never heard of it, until prompted by Thomas Powers' 2013 essay o......more

Goodreads review by Corto

A complex and cerebral book. It can be viewed as a thinly disguised polemic on counterinsurgency, an anti-communist screed, or the wine of sour grapes by an Imperialist bitterly lamenting the loss of his possessions. And there’s sex. Lots and lots of sex. In fact, it seems that part of Larteguy’s ange......more

Goodreads review by RANGER

A profound, mind-blowing, thinking-man's war novel on the savagery and impossible circumstances of modern warfare The Centurions traces the epic struggle of a band of French paratroopers from the 1954 French debacle at Dien Bien Phu through their internment as POWs of the Vietminh, then their repatri......more

Goodreads review by Sigrid

I do not recommend books very often. Having read all my life I am difficult to please. As an author, I am also a harsh critic, however this book demands that it is recommended to readers. The writing, its style, the content and psychological explanations of character are excellent. This description of......more