Excellent historical insight into Elite Forces through time

This is an historical recount of some little known battles and the elite forces at that time. It is a fascinating read punctuated with anecdotes from Ranulph’s own unique adventures.
A worthy addition to any military history collection.

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Rehash of other works with added anecdotes

Lots of respect for Sir Ran, I don’t think this is the best history of special forces - it’s too light in detail and errs too much toward tabloid for my personal taste. If you’re already well read on military history there’s unlikely to be anything new here for you in that regard. The redeeming feature is Ranulf’s anecdotes of his own life experiences which are astonishing. This is mostly because they’re impressive tales of endurance, but a few are candidly about some of the poor decisions he made in his military career like stealing explosives when in the SAS and planning to use them to blow up a film set. His biography would likely be an interesting read.

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Somewhat interesting but feels like bragging

Felt almost like a compilation of Wikipedia pages about some of history's better known crack soldiers (Wikipedia level is great for initial level but felt this book would offer more).

Continual references to "I myself know what this was like" is an attempt to provide authenticity from the definitely hugely impressive life of the author but it just came across to me as bragging... The reader while excellent for this just made it sound all the more smug if you don't like it!

Lots of the units didn't really feel like special forces in the way the SAS or SEALs do, so much as a standard army unit (E.g. The Mongol hordes - different to European counterparts but not specialist units within Genghis Khan's ranks and the Battle of Britain was just the author waxing about a moment of national pride). The choice of forces also felt Anglo centric making it hard to claim the book is objectively a history of special forces. Most are firmly British, American, or those glorified in British British popular culture. The author is a figure of the British establishment so this isn't exactly surprising, it just makes the book read less as an analytical history and more as "here's a bunch of types of soldiers across time that I really wanted to be part of growing up".

But I listened to the whole book and did find the history interesting, so it's clearly got something to it and it's easy to do a hatchet job on someone else's work. I myself have just done one.

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Interesting but sensationalist.

An entertaining overview of some specific historic moments, but glib. An odd choice for Sir Ranulph to inject some of his adventures into each example, often they felt forced. An OK book but not an academic work.

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Superb, simply superb

There is little more to say. The author glides through centuries of elite forces’ history, sprinkled with fascinating personal anecdotes.

Peter Noble’s performance is, as ever, pitch perfect.

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excellent book

enjoyed this book from start to finish would recommend this even if you don't like the military.

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Meh

Was ok but he Shoehorns his own stories into literally every single chapter. I know you had to pull a 450lb sled In the arctic , you already told me 2 chapters ago. If I wanted to read that I’d have bought one of his other books .

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Entertaining and informative

A worthwhile listen. A good historical and well informed narrative. Some good anecdotes and the story built its self well.

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Great overview of a fascinating subject!

Taking us from early historical times through to the 21st century, this fascinating book, embellished with personal anecdotes, outlines the way special forces have developed through the requirements of particular circumstances for a small, highly trained unit to perform specific operations. Well read and engaging!

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A good timeline of heroic deeds

A book about killers really, lots of mentions of the authors own family including himself, and tales of murderous daring across the world.

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