The Six-Day War is a conflict full of controversy and strong opinions on both sides. It has also garnered much interest in military history circles. Even wargaming has ventured into recreating the battles of the war, as Battlefront miniatures has a variant of their popular World War II game Flames of War, called Fate of a Nation. There have been many books written on this conflict and even more articles examining the various facets of the conflict, from weaponry used, to tactics, and the political considerations behind this war.
Steven Pressfield has written a new popular history on the war that draws upon accounts from veterans of the war. His new book The Lion’s Gate: On the Front Lines of the Six Day War covers the war through the experiences of men from select units in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). While not a comprehensive history of the conflict, the book does an excellent job of discussing the war from the ground up, which reflects the general trends in military history and conflict studies to study wars from the common soldiers instead of major leaders.
The organization is quite good, divided into six “books” that cover a particular section of the war, including the Sinai, Jerusalem, and the lead up to the conflict. The prose is accessible to general readers and does not come across too academic in tone. While not meant to be an academic history, this work is a good resource for examining the war in detail for those seeking to start studying the war. The book also features several maps and photographs to aid in understanding the scope and reality of the war. Praised by The Wall Street Journal, Marine Corps Times, and Los Angeles Times, Steven Pressfield’s The Lion’s Gate is a great new work on an important conflict in Middle East history.
Military History 