The Heart and the Fist Book Review

This is my first book review so please bear with me. My goal is to give a little bit about the author then enough about the premise of the book to make you want to read it. If there’s anything else I find interesting I’ll post them after the review (this could include other reviews or author interviews.) I will only review books that I personally recommend so if you see that I have reviewed a book then you know it’s one I approve.

About Eric Greitens (Author)

The Heart and the Fist is the second book from author Eric Greitens. Greitens has had quite the academic quest in his life studying ethics, philosophy, and public policy at Duke University then studying from 1996 to 2000 at Oxford as a Rhodes and Truman Scholar. Throughout university he spent summers volunteering in war-torn countries outside of the United States. After seeing that volunteer work is mostly reactive he decided to become a Navy Seal in hopes of having a proactive approach to humanitarianism. His life experiences makes his book an incredible read as he is incredibly knowledgable and you can tell that he has throughly researched all of his topics.

The Heart and the Fist

The Heart and the Fist is written in three distinct sections. A good chunk of the book is Greitens time spent at Duke University where he studied hard, volunteered during summers, and became a boxer. The second chunk is his experiences at Oxford College where he continued his boxing career, education, and volunteering. The last section of the book his is time spent in the Teams with each chapter focusing on a different country he was stationed in. The main focuses of the book is on improving relations with other countries and helping people who are in need of our help. This is not an action packed thriller… so if you’re looking for that I’d suggest going elsewhere.

As I said before the focus of this book is on improving relations with other countries and helping people out. It makes the reader realize just how important the interactions between our troops and the people they’re supporting are including the social impact that they have. The Heart an the Fist really puts all of this in perspective and makes you proud to know that the Teams consider this aspect. Another very interesting facet of this book is how Greitens compares his time and interactions in foreign countries as a volunteer and as a Navy Seal. Buy (to support this awesome author and his non-profit) this amazing book and trust me you will not be able to put it down.

After finishing up this book I’m very excited to purchase and start reading his next book titled The Warrior’s Heart.

Buy the Book

Pick up the book from either Amazon or Powell’s Books and help support the site!