The Profession
A Novel
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- 3,49 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
Master storyteller and bestselling author Steven Pressfield returns with a stunning, chillingly plausible near-future thriller about the rise of a privately financed and global military industrial complex.
The year is 2032. The third Iran-Iraq war is over; the 11/11 dirty bomb attack on the port of Long Beach, California is receding into memory; Saudi Arabia has recently quelled a coup; Russians and Turks are clashing in the Caspian Basin; Iranian armored units, supported by the satellite and drone power of their Chinese allies, have emerged from their enclaves in Tehran and are sweeping south attempting to recapture the resource rich territory stolen from them, in their view, by Lukoil, BP, and ExxonMobil and their privately-funded armies.
Everywhere, military force is for hire. Oil companies, multi-national corporations and banks employ powerful, cutting-edge mercenary armies to control global chaos and protect their riches. Even nation states enlist mercenary forces to suppress internal insurrections, hunt terrorists, and do the black bag jobs necessary to maintain the new New World Order.
Force Insertion is the world's merc monopoly. Its leader is the disgraced former United States Marine General James Salter, stripped of his command by the president for nuclear saber-rattling with the Chinese and banished to the Far East. A grandmaster military and political strategist, Salter plans to take vengeance on those responsible for his exile and then come home...as Commander in Chief. The only man who can stop him is Gilbert "Gent" Gentilhomme, Salter's most loyal foot soldier, who launches a desperate mission to take out his mentor and save the United States from self destruction.
Infused with a staggering breadth of research in military tactics and steeped in the timeless themes of the honor and valor of men at war that distinguish all of Pressfield’s fiction, The Profession is that rare novel that informs and challenges the reader almost as much as it entertains.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in 2032, Pressfield's entertaining, thought-provoking thriller looks at an America past its apogee of moral power as it continues to face opponents whose barbarism threatens to make civilized conduct impossible. Old soldier James Salter, a Marine general fired because he dared to stand up for the people of a failed African state against the wishes of U.S. diplomats, refuses to fade away. Instead, Salter becomes the field commander of Force Insertion, a mercenary outfit that makes Blackwater look like mall rent-a-cops. Based in the Middle East, Salter wields the world's ninth largest (and perhaps best trained) army and the fifth largest economy. The old power structure maneuvers to neutralize Salter, but the American people and his own troops "think it's about time we had an American commander who wasn't afraid to kick the world in the ass." Evoking Roman history, in particular the friction between republic and empire, Pressfield (Gates of Fire) draws uncomfortable conclusions about the United States' current plight.
