Last Stands

Why Men Fight When All Is Lost

By: Michael Walsh

Narrated by: Michael Walsh

Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's summary

What are we willing to die for? Michael Walsh restores the dignity of lost concepts like honor, duty, sacrifice, and patriotism for our unheroic age.

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 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.

©2020 Michael Walsh (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing

Russia “not a colonizer?”

I believe the millions of citizens of various former Soviet republics might quibble with such a statement


He states since the Russo-Japanese conflict, the Russians had no interest in eastern expansion. Mukden, Manchuria, IndoChina are but a few of the commonly known examples of eastern adventurism that the author misses—-not to mention Afghanistan and Pakistan closer to home.


Good grief!



Kinda of makes you wonder what other basic facts he gets wrong.



Those particular shockers, inaccuracies in WW2 strategy, and a certain homogeneity in the examples he uses raises questions about the entire work



Listen to the introduction and the early classical examples and move on.



The rest is redundant, factually suspect and as such, not worth you time.

Amazing Narration of the most Epic Battles of All Time

The author is the most informed I have ever read concerning certain historical battles which were the tipping point of World and American history. His academic yet easy going narration style is both educational and entertaining, a balance which is very hard to accomplish in audiobooks; this author nails both content and delivery in reading his own work. In a word, outstanding! … and it is not a spoiler to relay that through his poignant depiction of his own father in the Epilogue, he truly saves the best for last.

Excellent historical facts

Not politically skewed. Unemotional and unbiased. Written in an interesting and engaging way it will hold your interest. Very well done. Highly recommended.

Detailed History Here for The Taking...

I am a hard grader so that is why there are no 5s in the ratings. That said I think that Mr. Walsh has done a masterful job in the retelling of battles long forgotten and more recent ones that soon will be given the educational values of most younger people these days. The introduction is very important. I found that for me at least some of the earliest and mid-history battles were a little tedious for me to devour, but things quickly picked up. The best thing about every battle were the little known details that surrounded each fight and the reasons they occurred and the outcomes they produced. I would highly recommend this book to any serious student of military history.

Yeah interesting overview of last stands

First of all, let me say that this is a 5-star book, despite my grumbles below. It is well worth your credit and time. That said, here are my complaints:

1. It’s less of a book about the events of the last stands, and more of a book about the context and consequences of the last stands. I would have liked more details of what actually happened.
2. The author uses too many “big” words. This is the 53rd book that I listened to this year and I have a graduate degree, so I appreciate good writing and the occasional use of unusual words. But the author went overboard.
3. The last chapter should have had a better summary.

All that said, I highly recommend this book.

Outstanding

Great book with iluminary insights to the fighting man with a concrete grasp of current and past events. a must read for any student of military history. Should be on any Commanding Officer's reading list.

Deep education on war

A direct and well-rounded approach to historic battles. The through explanation of what lead to each battle is the highlight of this book.

Good but flawed

Love the premise. The best chapters were the prologue and epilogue. I very much enjoyed his honor of his father. Mr. Walsh, however, seems to have an ax to grind against Christianity which gave him an inaccurate slant on several battles, which made about a 1/3 of the book unenjoyable.

Required Reading

A slice of what makes history worth knowing....death, hero’s, the USMC, fathers and sons, amen.

Excellent

Why men fight, and the cultural devastation when they won’t. No special snowflakes need apply.