Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Penguin Classics (2015), 544 pages
Description
When The Centurionswas 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 Centurionsis 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.
User reviews
LibraryThing member Stbalbach
Excellent anti-war novel that continues to be read and studied by professional warfighters. There isn't much combat, it's not really a war novel but a novel about war; at least a third takes place in France on home-leave. It's about the various aspects a soldier deals with in the modern era
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post-WWII. The hazy loyalties, contradictions. In hindsight all the lessons of Vietnam are here, not to mention Iraq and Afghanistan. It's very French and some of the character-types are hard to grasp 60-years on but the essence is there, some things are universal. Show Less
LibraryThing member DinadansFriend
This book was read by me in in a month when, apparently, i was smothered in literary gore. However Larteguy's story following a French Paratroop company, as it fights at Dien Ben Phu, is captured, and endures captivity in Vietnam is quite gripping. After this baptism into the fading world of
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colonialism, we further march off to quell unrest in Algeria, and finally face the difficult adventure at Suez in 1956. The book, compared to the tales of the Pacific WWII I had been reading, was an interesting reset. Show Less
Awards
Language
Original language
French
Original publication date
1960
Physical description
544 p.; 5.1 inches
ISBN
0143107445 / 9780143107446