by David Talbot
First published 2011
Smedley Butler takes a Chinese bullet to the chest at eighteen, but the wound doesn't slow him down. He chases rebels through Nicaragua and Haiti, then saves his Marines in the trenches of France. Butler becomes the most decorated Marine in American history through decades of combat across the globe. But when he discovers that Wall Street profiteers are getting rich off Marine blood, everything changes. Butler launches a new kind of war on American soil. He cleans out Philadelphia's gangsters, stands up to President Herbert Hoover to defend veterans, and exposes a conspiracy to topple Franklin Roosevelt. The Marine who once served his country without question now fights to save it from itself.
Genres: biography, american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, american, military-fiction, action, american-history
Vibes: fast-paced, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-allies, whistleblower
Setting: Nicaragua, Haiti, France, Philadelphia
Period: 20th-Century
160 pages · Kindle Edition · Simon Schuster
Content warnings: violence