While serving a tour in Afghanistan in 2013, I came across Steven Pressfield's 2011 monograph " The Warrior Ethos," at the top of a list of books that the Commandant of the Marine Corps had made mandatory reading for all Marines. Having enjoyed several of Pressfield's historical novels before, I was looking forward to this latest volume, but was shocked by what I discovered; a rambling mixture of Laconophiliac hero worship, Eastern mysticism, and pop psychology. As a leader and an officer, I was so concerned by the disturbingly misogynistic and backwards-looking nature of this book that I...