Last Stands: Why Men Fight When All Is Lost

Description

What is heroism? What are its moral components-altruism, love, self-sacrifice? Why was it once celebrated, and now often dismissed as anachronistic? In this dramatic and readable account of last stands in history-famous or otherwise-Walsh explores the stakes that led men at very different times and places to face overwhelming odds and certain death for the sake of family, home and country. In Last Stands, Walsh writes about battles in which a small group faced overwhelming odds, and all too often died to the last man-battles like Thermopylae, the Ronceveaux Pass, the Alamo, the siege of Malta, Little Big Horn, Stalingrad, Rorke's Drift, and the Warsaw Ghetto-explaining why they were fought, what their ultimate outcome was, and their afterlife in history, myth and culture.

The author of sixteen books, including six novels and ten works of non-fiction, MICHAEL WALSH was the classical music critic for Time Magazine and received the 2004 American Book Awards prize for fiction for his gangster novel, And All the Saints in 2004. His popular columns for National Review written under the pseudonym David Kahane were developed into the book, Rules for Radical Conservatives. His two last books, The Devil's Pleasure Palace and The Fiery Angel, examine the enemies, heroes, triumphs and struggles of Western Civilization from the ancient past to the present time. He divides his time between Connecticut and Ireland.

"An unrelenting and rousing account of one of humanity's most laudable wartime phenomena, and a book that hurls a gauntlet at the feet of a contemporary culture which, despite our living in a world that is still violently challenging, fails to find nobility in self-sacrifice. It engages in the very best sense: every reader will find something to agree with and something to argue against in these pages--but isn't that the true meaning of 'provocative?' Walsh wanders through his comprehensive roster of quixotic military adventures with youthful enthusiasm, lyrical style, and academic ease; and Last Stands is a promise to heroism fulfilled." --Caleb Carr, New York Times bestselling author of The Alienist and Surrender, New York Last Stands is a thoroughly original study of doomed or trapped soldiers often fighting to the last man, from Thermopylae to the Korean War. But Michael Walsh's book is more than a military history of heroic resistance. It is also a philosophical and spiritual defense of the premodern world, of the tragic view, of physical courage, and of masculinity and self-sacrifice in an age when those ancient virtues are too often caricatured and dismissed. A much needed essay on why rare men would prefer death to dishonor, and would perish in the hope that others thereby might live. --Victor Davis Hanson, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author of The Second World Wars "Michael Walsh is many things--ranconteur, fire-brand editor, patriot. In Last Stands he becomes something more--historian and therapist. Walsh takes the oft-told tales of the heroism of the Alamo, Little Big Horn, Thermopylae and allows the reader to come to grips with the why. Why do men fight to the bitter end? Why do they stay true when all is lost, and they know all is lost? Walsh does a service to patriots everywhere. His must-read book allows the reader to work 'the why' around in his mind--and come to an understanding of real heroism." --Stephen K. Bannon, former White House Chief Strategist In Last Stands, Michael Walsh examines ferocious truths--about war and human nature, about men in battle, about courage in the face of hopelessness, about honor, duty, sacrifice, and the profound respect that masculinity may command. Last Stands, a work of scholarship and fine storytelling, is a grimly riveting study of the realities of Horace's Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. --Lance Morrow "As he has shown in The Devil's Pleasure Palace and The Fiery Angel, there is no more astute chronicler of the relationship between culture and politics than Michael Walsh. In Last Stands, he offers a philosophic examination of the nature of honor and its relation to masculinity, a topic that runs against the main current of contemporary discourse. Walsh contends that it is the ancient virtue of honor that motivates men to face certain death. But as he notes, since World War II, 'honor' has 'become risible, an archaic insult, the taunt of the atheist and the weakling against the strong.' But challenging a culture characterized all too often by 'men without chests, ' Walsh celebrates honor and its corollary, heroism, as they have manifested themselves in hopeless battles from Thermopylae to the Chosin Reservoir. In doing so, Walsh reminds us once again that civilization needs heroes: men who go to their death willingly rather than suffer shame, disgrace, and dishonor." --Mackubin Thomas Owens, editor of Orbis Michael Walsh's provocative book explores the toxic masculinity--that mixture of bellicosity, patriarchal attitudes and patriotism--that has fueled men at war dating back to 480 B.C. It's also a book about fathers and sons and a tribute to his 94-year-old father, a Marine Corps Korean War veteran awarded a Bronze star for heroism. Michael and I often profoundly disagree on social and political issues but he always argues with passion and finesse. --Meryl Gordon, bestselling author of Mrs. Astor Regrets The qualities of which Walsh writes are real, and they are every bit as vital to a civilization as he says. --The American Conservative Praise for The Fiery Angel: "For decades now, the cultural Left has been waging a war for our souls and freedoms, and their success depends on our increasing inability to comprehend and appreciate the rich spiritual and intellectual heritage of Western civilization. In The Fiery Angel, Michael Walsh's dazzling intellect is on full display and readers will walk away not just with a tremendous appreciation of the Judeo-Christian beliefs and heroic narratives that have preserved and protected us for thousands of years, but he also gives them the tools to go out and defend these ideals from the cultural onslaught." --Mollie Hemingway, Senior Editor of The Federalist and Fox News contributor "From Aristotle to The Marriage of Figaro, Michael Walsh seeks light in these dark times in the deepest sources of our culture and its most illuminating works of art. From the divine to the erotic and from the contemplative to the heroic, it's all there, waiting, in The Fiery Angel." --Kevin Williamson, author of The End Is Near and It's Going To Be Awesome "This unique book teaches Western civilization and its agonists by acquainting the reader with the fundamentals of western art, music, literature, and painting. Walsh reminds us that the arts are the basic means by which any and all peoples interpret the experiences of life. The arts are civilization's substance. Empires are epiphenomena. Shakespeare counts for more than Elizabeth I and Solzhenitsyn more than Brezhnev. Politicizing the arts destroys civilization, understanding them preserves it. Read this book. You will learn from it." --Angelo M. Codevilla, Professor Emeritus of International Relations at Boston University "In his magisterial defense of Western Civilization, Michael Walsh shows how the cultural Marxist Left's war against human nature, virtue, norms, and a nation's culture is actually a war against God's creation. It will ultimately be trumped by honest history and art that faithfully reflects the human condition, our perennial struggle between the better and worse angels of our nature. Ultimately, when we seek beauty and reject Promethean ugliness, we will come closer to basing our society on goodness and truth--and our civilization may even survive." --Dr. John Lenczowski, Founder and President of The Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C.