This is without a doubt one of the silliest books ever to take itself seriously. The author, whose prose is at all times breathtakingly self-indulgent, offers up a sententious comparison of the Cold War superpower struggle with the wars between ancient Carthage ("the Free World") and Rome ("the Russian empire"), with assists from Syracuse ("mainland China") and Utica ("France"). The author seems peculiarly obsessed with France. After mapping out these comparisons, Sargent embarks on what he intends as a historical novel. The result reads as if Samuel Johnson had been grafted onto Jack Kerouac, then assigned to write Classics Comics. Take, for example, this random sample:

“As a helpful little benison, at least—having already entered upon the arena of violence—and beyond my wildest dreams—I found the resumption of the inexpiable activities less onerous!

“How strangely events had contracted themselves into raw courage of desperado with me the ingenuous benign fugitive forced to submit to their tender mercies—unable to explain, in no position to communicate—if caught!” ( )