The Ten Thousand: A Novel of Ancient Greece
by Michael Curtis Ford
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Book Summary Information
Author: Michael Curtis FordEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-10-13
ISBN: 0312980329
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks
Book Reviews of The Ten Thousand: A Novel of Ancient Greece
Book Review: Way beyond 5 stars!
Summary: 5 Stars
I love military history--which is really--whether we like it or not--all of history!
At my prep school, we had to read "interesting" texts, in Greek and Latin, along with the required, boring, texts. The exciting Greek text we got to read was Xenophon's Anabasis--"The March Up Country".
What a story: 10,000 Greeks totally trapped behind hostile lines; didn't really speak their language, hadn't a clue as to whom the local despot was that week, etc., yet, they travelled nearly two thousand miles--all through enemy territory, and they lost very few troopers! Even the absolutely amazing Lewis and Clark Expedition pales by comparison!
To this day, I marvel as to how HOW THEY DID IT! One might have thought that he (Xenephon) must have made up so miraculous an adventure--but, as historical scholarship has now confirmed; he REALLY DID DO IT! As our poor girls and boys now suffer in _________ (fill in the blank, our war du jour (doesn't that sicken you? it sickens me, and I am an arch-conservative!)), it is hopeful to see that, at least, there was once actually a military leader who knew what he was doing (hint--ability is inverse to the number of ribbons on chest).
As I understand it, Xenephon was essentially the equivalent of a US Navy SEAL Team leader--he, and his team, could do anything, anywhere, if only they were permitted to do so.
I am not a war monger: I, like General Sherman, had hoped that, since war is so very, very terrible, we will not have so much of it. I have been very disappointed, since, in my relatively short life, we (the U.S.) are now on our fourth major war!
Mr. Ford, within only the first dozen pages of his book, embroils us right into the middle of a military action. I have never seen anything that captures the reality of war--any war--in such detail, and in such agonizing truth--as he does--in only a dozen pages! (It could be Saratoga, Bull Run, the Marne, Peliliu, the Bulge, the Chosin Resovoir, Khe Sanh, Fallujah, it doesn't matter--tragically, the experience of the soldier (marine, sailor, coastguardsman) on the ground is very much the same).
He is the most amazing author I have ever read! (and I've read a lot--advanced degrees in Brit and French Literature). But, putting the peddle to the metal, even in the "historical fiction" gender that Pressfield, Hansen, and Cornwell (I dunno, but, unlike my son, who loves the Sharpe novels, but doesn't care for the videos, I think Sean Bean IS Sharpe) excel in, I think Ford has come out on top. I don't like to say that, because all the others I have mentioned are excellent writers; it just seems that this field, right now, in America, like philopshopy or drama in ancient Greece or drama in Elizabethan times, or chamber music in late-16th Century Germany, has generated an "embrassment of riches"! Pressfield, Hansen, Cronwell, and cetainly Ford, will be read many decades after we have "passed to Hades".
Summary of The Ten Thousand: A Novel of Ancient Greece
In 401 B.C., a thundering army of mercenaries, camp followers, dreamers, and glory seekers set off to help a rebellious foreign general named Cyrus. In the months that followed, ten thousand men--trained and hardened in three decades of war in Greece--would engage in pitched battles, witness untold horrors, and begin a desperate march across he desert, over raging rivers, and into the jaws of hell itself. By the time it was over, some would be alive, others dead, and one among them would emerge and the greatest hero of all...
In a novel of high adventure and riveting historical drama, Michael Curtis Ford brings to life an amazing true story from Greek antiquity--Xenophon's march of the ten Thousand. A tale of war and peace, of loyalties and betrayals, and of a soldier's love for a mysterious and dangerous woman, The Ten Thousand captures the eternal spirit of courage--in the face of impossible odds.
In a novel of high adventure and riveting historical drama, Michael Curtis Ford brings to life an amazing true story from Greek antiquity--Xenophon's march of the ten Thousand. A tale of war and peace, of loyalties and betrayals, and of a soldier's love for a mysterious and dangerous woman, The Ten Thousand captures the eternal spirit of courage--in the face of impossible odds.
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