Robert

EXCEPTIONAL BOOK. ONE OF THE BEST.

Revisado: 01-14-23

Having just retired after 30 years on active duty in the Marines, my son, who just graduated college and was headed to Marine TBS, asked for a good book about being an officer in the Corps. I listened to Matterhorn and recommended it to him before I even finished it. Now that we have both listened to it more than once, we talk about it often. Superbly well-written, it's character development is only bested by the vivid descriptions of the rigors of service in war. It took me back to my days of fighting, and articulated memories and lessons that my son will carry forward to the next generation. Thank you Karl Marlantes, this book has had a big impact on two generations of Marine officers in my family alone. I recommend it to everyone interested in Vietnam, combat and one of the toughest times in Marine Corps history.

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I think this was erroneously categorized

Revisado: 06-13-20

This is the story of a person's interactions with extraterrestrial beings he had when he was 6 years old... This has nothing to do with military history except that the author claims he was tortured for information about the event when he joined the Army in the 1980s. No names, locations, or historical context of any kind. The author carefully omits any references that one could use to verify any part of the story. It would be a fun read if was placed in the science fiction category, but the plot needs work. Does no one screen these books before they are placed online?

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GOOD BOOK, IF YOU CAN IGNORE THE ANTI-AMERICANISM

Revisado: 05-25-20

Good book, excellent reader, full of interesting facts about the conflict, but the political analysis was pure propaganda. The blatant anti-American bias appears throughout both books. Americans are repeatedly described as rabid racists, that ignored their own revolutionary break from British control a century before, intent on conquering the Philippines to establish an empire. (Which it never did, even after it won the war). The Philippine Army’s brutality during the war is described as simply responding to those racist Americans, while the Americans act solely out of malice. One such example is in Chapter 3, book 2, when the Philippine refusal to grant female suffrage in their constitution was referred to as “following the norms of the era.” However, similar American action was “racist and hateful.” The author spends the entire first book on the Spanish American War criticizing “yellow journalism,” then quotes op-ed pieces from the same papers and a military “cadence song” as proof of American racism and backward thinking in the second book on Philippine American War. Why not tell us about the Congressional debates over the annex of the Philippines – oh, because it doesn’t fit into the narrative that America is racist. Too bad really, would have been a good book otherwise.

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Rambling. Uninformative. Terrible writing.

Revisado: 06-07-18

The author tries to convey his obsession with Spain, but only shows his obsession with himself. Codified narcissism. Have listened to two hundred+ books and this was the worst. I didn't finish the other two terrible books on my list, but this was so bad I listened to all of it out of morbid curiosity to see if it would have redeeming value at all. It had some interesting points, but definitely not worth reading. The author spends the first 102 minutes! talking about himself and how he came to write the book: uninteresting self-aggrandizement. Then he, finally, launches into his analysis of the history of Spain. However, its just a rambling patchwork of apparently poorly researched conclusions. Wish I could see the footnotes. He seems obsessed with unnecessarily impressing the listener with his vocabulary, but many of the technical terms are subject to different interpretations, so the resulting book is confusing on almost every page. Wasted credit.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Not good at all

Revisado: 09-30-16

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Everything. Terrible story. Terrible performance. A yellow journalist who brags about lying and deceiving his subjects. I can't believe a word in the book. One of two books out 300 purchased from audible that I did not finish.

Would you ever listen to anything by John Safran again?

No, he ruined the entire book. Stunningly bad taste throughout.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

No.

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