Steven Pressfield, author of A Man at Arms and Gates of Fire, joins the show to talk about writing historical fiction, telling the truth about war, and why the hardest part of art is “doing the work” .▪️Times • 01:38 Introduction • 03:49 Why Historical Fiction? • 08:25 Creating The “Distant Mirror” • 12:12 Special Forces • 14:17 Characters • 19:44 A Man at Arms • 22:01 Post-Warrior Life • 23:46 The Warrior Ethos • 27:20 Society Needs, But Doesn’t Want, Warriors • 32:52 Citizen-Soldier • 34:10 Reading History • 37:48 Characters Are Uncovered, Not Made • 40:19 The War Of Art • 45:52 Telling Stories
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This podcast seeks to learn what war teaches. There has been a steady decline in the study of military history and its associated theoretical discipline, strategy.This podcast seeks to fill that gap through in-depth interviews on military and diplomatic history. Our guests have included former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the Cold War historian John Lewis Gaddis, and former China Select Committee chairman Mike Gallagher. We discuss the battlefield commanders, diplomats, strategists, policymakers, and statesmen who have had to make wartime decisions in the ancient and modern eras. The subject of an episode may be an historical battle, campaign, o...