It won the British Book Awards Book of the Year for 2007 and is on the bestseller list here in the US. It's not difficult to see why.
For a long time, feminazis and their sissy male acolytes have shrilly and need I say illogically, countered the obvious fact that boys are very different creatures from girls and there's nothing short of overturning the very laws of nature that will change this.
Boys are curious about dangerous “stuff”, and we do dangerous things—as a boy, I liked jumping off the second floor of an unfinished house in my neighborhood onto a large pile of sand about 30 feet below for fun.
Girls generally simply don't like that stuff, bless their little hearts. And this is a Good Thing™.
These days, boys' natural aptitude for dangerous things, in fact the very essence of being a boy, are being severely curtailed on every side: teachers—usually liberal assholes—and fuddy-minded parents all want milquetoast, pretty boys who run from danger, explore their innermost sensitivity and, of course, cry at the drop of a hat. Well, bollocks to it!
Prissy boys don't do anyone any good and ultimately result later in life as pansywaist pussies who shirk every responsibility, including to their wives and children. If we do not inculcate the un-PC qualities of manliness (courage, risk-taking, and responsibility amongst others) into our boys, we'll be sitting ducks. This books goes some way in doing that.
In the words of Conn Iggulden:
… I think we've become aware that the whole "health and safety" overprotective culture isn't doing our sons any favors. Boys need to learn about risk. They need to fall off things occasionally, or--and this is the important bit--they'll take worse risks on their own. If we do away with challenging playgrounds and cancel school trips for fear of being sued, we don't end up with safer boys--we end up with them walking on train tracks. In the long run, it's not safe at all to keep our boys in the house with a Playstation. It's not good for their health or their safety.
You only have to push a boy on a swing to see how much enjoys the thrill of danger. It's hard-wired. Remove any opportunity to test his courage and they'll find ways to test themselves that will be seriously dangerous for everyone around them. I think of it like playing the lottery--someone has to say "Look, you won't win--and your children won't be hurt. Relax. It won't be you."
I think that's the core of the book's success. It isn't just a collection of things to do. The heroic stories alone are something we haven't had for too long. It isn't about climbing Everest, but it is an attitude, a philosophy for fathers and sons. Our institutions are too wrapped up in terror over being sued--so we have to do things with them ourselves. This book isn't a bad place to start.
It's all in fun, of course, but there's a serious undercurrent that's been tapped into by this book (which is why it's a bestseller): failing to bring up our children properly—girls and boys—with a mind towards our genetic makeup and cultural values will lead to the disintegration. No one who thinks lowly of our shared history and the battles fought to bring that about will want to fight for it. This is most apparent in the modern liberal mindset.
But don't think this book is all about gra-gra (rough) stuff as we used to say back in Nigeria. No, there are stories of incredible courage such as that of Joe Simpson in Touching the Void and battles royale such as Rorke's Drift, Gettysburg, and Waterloo. One also learns essential Shakespeare quotes, Latin phrases every boy should know, and how latitude and longitude work.
If you're a father, buy this book and share it with your boy. If you're not, buy this book anyway and relive those halcyon days you spent discovering dangerous things and then discover them again. Discover them anew boys, if your parents were of the new pussified school of upbringing.
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