Title: The third great Anabasis
Review: A provocative, insightful, and fascinating read. Fick has always had a first class analytic mind (he is too modest to mention the Rintels prize for best honors thesis at Dartmouth for his study of Thucydidean realism), and has been able to apply it with a degree of detachment to a traumatic and intensely personal experience.This is a unique work. Evan Wright's book and series in Rolling Stone (which I also enjoyed and recommend) is superb at exploring character; Smith and West do a good job of laying out the wider picture. But Fick manages to convey both the experience of combat and the larger issues at stake for the individuals and the countries involved. His Anabasis blends, if you will, the immediacy of Xenophon's with the historical sense of Arrian's, and goes beyond either in the acuity of its perceptions.In sum, Fick's book is conscious at every level. It deserves to become a classic.Frank RussellProf. of History, Transylvania University
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