"Matterhorn" author Karl Marlantes' nonfiction debut is a powerful book about the experience of combat and how inadequately we prepare our young men and women for the psychological and spiritual stresses of war. One of the most important and highly-praised books of 2011, Karl Marlantes' "What It Is [...]

From the author of 'Matterhorn'. This book takes us back to Vietnam, but this time there is no fictional veil. Here are the hard-won truths that underpin Matterhorn: the author's real-life experiences of combat, part confession, part philosophical primer for the young man about to enter combat. [...]

In 1969, at the age of twenty-three, Karl Marlantes was dropped into the highland jungle of Vietnam, an inexperienced lieutenant in command of a platoon of forty marines who would live or die by his decisions. Marlantes survived, but like many of his brothers in arms, he has spent the last forty yea[...]