Alexandra invades Afghanistan - and the tribes wonder why? Did he come to take our poverty?

Warfare descends from glory - warrior versus warrior - to ghastly massacres of slaughter , killing women, elderly and children. The are vivid narratives of fear , pain and poetry. The peace could come with a marriage - Alexandra marrying an Afghan princess - a marriage where the Afghans cheer on as the Macks can then go home and leave them in their vast wilderness. But there is still the old code of honour - to kill because a kind merciful deed was shown to a kin ; embarrassing the closer kin who did nothing. Now he has to kill to regain honour.

Admist the sweeping narratives , a deep dive into an Afghan bazaar where one can sees "self multilators .. sadhu price both cheeks, grinning all the while . A girl swallows swords . Brazier-men sell sheep brains, poached in skulls, swine hooves; bull testicles on beds of steaming rice " ... eyeballs , knuckles , shrunken skulls ...

One wishes that modern politicians and army generals of our times would read this before trying to invade (with such disaster ) Afghanistan instead of acknowledging their way of life .

The Afghan Campaign follows the story of a soldier who fights under Alexander the Great during his grueling war to try and conquer the people of Afghanistan. There were many bright spots in this book. The battle tactics were clearly well-researched. The depiction of PTSD, sympathetic portrayal of the enemy, and horrors of war were the best I've ever read.

Unfortunately, the story itself didn't read much like a book but more as a glorified textbook. Furthermore, there was little sense of overall narrative structure. Every chapter felt the same.

The end was brutal but realistic. If I had felt more for the characters, I think it would have hit me harder.

Really bad. The "modern language" was so badly done I kept waiting for the author to slip and write "dude". While the war history itself may be accurate, it was swallowed up in a average-Joe's fantasy of blood and loose women (this is a public website). I regret having read what shape the blood pooled in and dredging through characters conveniently killed off so the main character doesn't have to emotionally deal with them.
So glad I can return this to the library and never see it again.

This book is about a young man named Matthias who enlisted as a mercenary fighter in the Afghan campaign of Alexander the great. There was war, conflicts, friendship and a very unlikely romance with an afghan girl - all great come of age material.

It's a terrible historical book, in that it reads like modern people doing coz play. Not only is it strange to hear ancient Macedonian using phrases like sergeant, pounds, saddles the horse(saddles were invented centuries later), Afghanistan, and the worst, Kandahar (the name was derived years after yet-another-alexandria), I also question in a culture where kleos was celebrated via military valor, whether young men would share our sensibility of aversion to violence. Alexander himself makes a few brief but impressionable appearances.

However, if we imagine the protagonist as a fresh soldier hailed out of Kansas in his first of many deployments to Afghanistan, the book is very authentic in its descriptions of the landscape, the culture, the brutality of war and the impossible mission of dominating other peoples. I don't recall any ancient sources mentioning Bactrian attitudes towards women. The depiction of misogyny was clearly based on the current day Taliban doctrines. These qualities make the book a worthwhile read.

War is hell but it sure is readable when relayed through the eyes of Matthias, a 19 year old Macedonian soldier eager to join up with Alexander before all the glory and treasure is gone. He and his mates make it overseas after Darius is conquered but just in time to join the titular fracas. There’s little noble fighting but lots of guerilla tactics, meager rations, and horrible weather. I enjoy reading about Alexander and recently finished The Persian Boy by Renault. That tale is narrated by a beautiful eunuch who provides ALL kinds a stress relief to the hard-campaigning Macedonian king (and boy is he stressed—often). This is quite a different read. Give both books 4 out of 5 stars but think I enjoyed The Afghan Campaign more. Great, bloody read that offers a strong perspective on why the Afghan people and land have proved a slippery fish to hold.

I started this book on a recommendation. Actually on numerous recommendations as I've been hearing about Steven Pressfield and his historic novels for a while. In other words, I started this without knowing anything more than the title and an assumption it would take place in Afghanistan.

Well, I was right that it took place in Afghanistan. My guesses about Russian or current occupation were way off, but strangely pertinent. This was Alexander's push to the East in expanding his empire. Alexander had conquered Persia (modern day Iran) and was moving toward India, but first needed to conquer Afghanistan.

The book is written from the perspective of an infantry soldier from Macedon named Matthias. Matthias and his friend Lukas join the army with dreams of glory and wealth. Both of Matthias' older brothers are members of Alexander's elite cavalry, but Matthias accepts a role as an infantryman.

The book covers Matthias' long trek to Afghanistan and the many hardships entailed. When he is finally thrust into combat, Matthias is a mess. Terrified, reluctant to do violence and laughed at by the troops. We follow Matthias over the years in Afghanistan and learn of the people, the terrain and how Alexander's army operates. Over time Matthias becomes a soldier, but it is at the expense of being who he was. He is hardened and desensitized to violence.

A very interesting aspect of this book is talking about how hard it is to conquer Afghanistan. The native people are hardened and willful. The land is treacherous and works against invaders. Where thus far, Alexander the Great has had relatively easy conquests, Afghanistan forces him into compromises.

This really was an excellent book. It gives a view into an area of history and culture I was not familiar with. The main character and his friends are enjoyable and the story riveting. There are some very dark events in the book that drive home the harshness of this war.

If you were a judger of covers, novel fanatics might veer away from The Afghan Campaign due to its bland, non-fiction-masquerading cover. Fortunately for me, this was a book club pick, so I was obligated to give it a whirl. Pressfield's novel turned out to be an extremely interesting look into what it might have been like to be in Alexander the Great's army during his siege of Afghanistan. We follow Matthias from the time of his initiation into the army through to the end. There are funny bits, harrowing bits, and devastating bits, but throughout, Pressfield maintains a level of intimacy between the reader and Matthias. We go through every fight every step alongside him, seeing what he sees and feeling what he feels. My only complaint was the deep delve into some of the aspects of the war. While it was interesting to learn how the Macedonias fought differently from the Afghans and why, some of the details of maneuvers, especially the locations of each branch of the army, were a little too in-depth for me.

3.5/5
dat ending

4,10

I love Steven Pressfield. I've read the majority of his books and have loved them all. Those books had a lot of emotional impact. Sadly, The Afghan Campaign does not.

The Afghan Campaign is a lot more technical. Pressfield's previous books dealt with the same material but for whatever reason, this one goes into more details when it comes to weaponry, occupation, fighting, campaigns, and everything else it is to be a soldier. Whenever there's a part in the story that would get emotional, it's told instead of shown. In fact, a lot of the story is told--be in what's happening or what kind of weapons there are.

There is a point way late in the story when Matthias gets a woman. That does open up things a bit as he's struggling with her, the campaign, the land, and of course his fiancée. Pressfield seems to take awhile going back to it so much so that I stopped caring. A lot of that is also told too.

The biggest problem with The Afghan Campaign is that it feels like it was created from his previous book, The Virtues of War. It's as if he had so much great stuff that he researched in that book that he didn't want to waste so he made this book.

I'll still list Pressfield as one of my favorite authors. I've loved all the other books he's written so I'm not surprised that this is the bump in the road.

I have come to know this man whom, before, I regarded more with awe and fear than respect. I see the whole of him now. He is a soldier in the noblest sense of the word. Tough, selfless, long-suffering.

Story of a young man who enters the service of Alexander the Great's army. Pressfield does a great job of weaving the narrative between pure historical facts and the story of Matthias, a young idealistic man who signs on to serve with his friend Lucas. From the beginning as raw recruits, through their struggles with killing and who they are becoming, Pressfield never shies away from the truths of the life of a soldier.

You couldn’t set down a heel of bread without somebody snatching it, and a decent hat or a pair of road-slappers were sure goners. A man hung his purse next to his testicles and, after shaking hands with a stranger, checked to make sure both sacks were still where he had left them.

The fact is clear, though no rookie other than Lucas owns the bowels to give it voice, that we have entered a crucible of the soul, of war’s horror, and that will change us. It has changed us already. Where will it end? Who will we be then? Myself, I feel its weight nightlong inside my skull, as spectacles of slaughter re-present themselves with such ghastliness that I dare not even shut my eyes.

Really top notch historical fiction

8/10

Covers some of the same territory as Pressfield's 2004 The Virtues of War, but I have to assume he revisited the Afghan portion of Alexander's march east as a stand-alone story in order to offer a full-length commentary on the U.S. invasion of the same lands. Indeed, if you mentally swap out Alexander's horse-mounted cavalry to America's modern armored ground and air cav, the entire book reads as surprisingly - and depressingly - current, (or at least it did when I read it, long before our sudden withdrawal last year).

Excellent book; Pressfield's best since Gates of Fire.

PERSONAL THOUGHTS: My heart wrenches for the women, young people and other "modernists" of Afghanistan who long for change, but damn if I have any idea how to bring it about. Between Britain's three invasions since 1838 and the recent Russian and American versions, the Afghan's primitive but fanatic resistance is on a 5-0 winning streak, and I just don't see how that's ever going to change.