The Lion’s Gate
Steven Pressfield
On the Front Lines of the Six Day War
The true story of one of the most unlikely and astonishing military victories in history. By turns inspiring, thrilling, and heartbreaking, The Lion’s Gate is both a true tale of military courage under fire and a journey into the heart of what it means to fight for one’s people.
Purchasing Options
“Rarely does an author manage to re-create a moment in history with such mastery, authority, and psychological insight.”
- Nelson DeMille, bestselling author
On the Front Lines of the Six Day War The true story of one of the most unlikely and astonishing military victories in history. By turns inspiring, thrilling, and heartbreaking, The Lion’s Gate is both a true tale of military courage under fire and a journey into the heart of what it means to fight for one’s people. June 5, 1967. The nineteen-year-old state of Israel is surrounded by enemies who want nothing less than her utter extinction. The Soviet-equipped Egyptian Army has massed a thousand tanks on the nation’s southern border. Syrian heavy guns are shelling her from the north. To the east, Jordan and Iraq are moving mechanized brigades and fighter squadrons into position to attack. Egypt’s President Nasser has declared that the Arab force’s objective is “the destruction of Israel.” The rest of the world turns a blind eye to the new nation’s desperate peril. June 10, 1967. The Arab armies have been routed, ground divisions wiped out, air forces totally destroyed. Israel’s citizen-soldiers have seized the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria, East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan. The land under Israeli control has tripled. Her charismatic defense minister, Moshe Dayan, has entered the Lion’s Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem to stand with the paratroopers who have liberated Judaism’s holiest site—the Western Wall, part of the ruins of Solomon’s temple, which has not been in Jewish hands for nineteen hundred years. It is one of the most unlikely and astonishing military victories in history. Drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews with veterans of the war—fighter and helicopter pilots, tank commanders and Recon soldiers, paratroopers, as well as women soldiers, wives, and others—bestselling author Steven Pressfield tells the story of the Six Day War as you’ve never experienced it before: in the voices of the young men and women who battled not only for their lives but for the survival of a Jewish state, and for the dreams of their ancestors.
If you're a reader of www.stevenpressfield.com, you already know more about Steve than his own family. So in lieu of a conventional bio, here are a few fun facts: 1. Steve and Shawn Coyne first met in 1998, when Shawn as an editor at Doubleday made an offer on Steve's historical novel Gates of Fire. Shawn was the only editor in New York to do so. Gates has gone on to sell more than a million copies. 2. It was Shawn who came up with the title, The War of Art, when his indie publishing house, Rugged Land, published the book in 2002. (Steve's title was The Writer's Life.) 3. The first person fired off the movie version of Steve's novel, The Legend of Bagger Vance, was Steve himself. The film's producer, multi-Oscar-winner Jake Eberts, phoned Steve to inform him that the director, Robert Redford, had a writer of his own that he wanted to work with. Steve thanked Jake sincerely and profusely, explaining that this was the first time he had ever been fired off a project, where the individual doing the firing had the good manners to actually inform him of that fact—instead of Steve having to read about it in the trades. 4. Steve's literary agent for Bagger Vance (who also made the deal for Steve's latest novel, 36 Righteous Men, coming in 2019 from W.W. Norton) is Sterling Lord of Sterling Lord Literistic. Sterling is ninety-eight years old and going strong. In 1948 he made the original deal for Jack Kerouac's On the Road—for $900.
What They're Saying
“A brilliant look into the psyche of combat. Where he once took us into the Spartan line of battle at Thermopylae, Steven Pressfield now takes us into the sands of the Sinai, the alleys of Old Jerusalem, and into the hearts and sould of soldiers winning a spectacularly improbable victory against daunting odds.”
- General Stanley McChrystal (U.S. Army, Ret.), author of My Share of the Task
“A rare glimpse into the different perspectives of a single historical event and proves to us there is always more than meets the eye.”
- Simon Sinek, author of Start with Why and Leaders Eat Last
“It’s always amazing how hard people can fight when their backs are against the wall.”
- Erik Prince, author of Civilian Warriors
“A sweeping, thrilling story of bravery, determination, and grit.”
- Brian Kilmeade, author of George Washington’s Secret Six