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Natural Born Heroes: How a Daring Band of Misfits Mastered the Lost Secrets of Strength and Endurance Hardcover – Deckle Edge, April 14, 2015

by Christopher McDougall (Author)

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The best-selling author of Born to Run now travels to the Mediterranean, where he discovers that the secrets of ancient Greek heroes are still alive and well on the island of Crete, and ready to be unleashed in the muscles and minds of casual athletes and aspiring heroes everywhere.

After running an ultramarathon through the Copper Canyons of Mexico, Christopher McDougall finds his next great adventure on the razor-sharp mountains of Crete, where a band of Resistance fighters in World War II plotted the daring abduction of a German general from the heart of the Nazi occupation. How did a penniless artist, a young shepherd, and a playboy poet believe they could carry out such a remarkable feat of strength and endurance, smuggling the general past thousands of Nazi pursuers, with little more than their own wits and courage to guide them?

McDougall makes his way to the island to find the answer and retrace their steps, experiencing firsthand the extreme physical challenges the Resistance fighters and their local allies faced. On Crete, the birthplace of the classical Greek heroism that spawned the likes of Herakles and Odysseus, McDougall discovers the tools of the hero—natural movement, extraordinary endurance, and efficient nutrition. All of these skills, McDougall learns, are still practiced in far-flung pockets throughout the world today.

More than a mystery of remarkable people and cunning schemes, Natural Born Heroes is a fascinating investigation into the lost art of the hero, taking us from the streets of London at midnight to the beaches of Brazil at dawn, from the mountains of Colorado to McDougall’s own backyard in Pennsylvania, all places where modern-day athletes are honing ancient skills so they’re ready for anything.

Just as Born to Run inspired readers to get off the treadmill, out of their shoes, and into the natural world, Natural Born Heroes will inspire them to leave the gym and take their fitness routine to nature—to climb, swim, skip, throw, and jump their way to their own heroic feats.

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Editorial Reviews

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“A mash note to physical endurance. . . . McDougall redefines the heroic ideal, establishing heroism as a skill set rather than a virtue. . . . [And] schools the reader in the art of the champion. . . . The essential narrative here, the twisty tale of a kidnapping that incredibly goes right, is exciting. It is balanced out with the journalistic account of McDougall’s entry into the world of the hero. His personal quest to ‘rewild the psyche’ might seem an awkward fit with war storytelling. But under McDougall’s sure hand the combination improbably works. Kind of like kidnapping a German general on an island swarming with Nazi troops.” —NPR Books

“A heady confection that encompasses, among other subjects, military history, archaeology, Greek mythology, neat ways to kill a man and ideas on health and fitness that might just change your life. . . . [McDougall] constructs a fascinating edifice of ideas . . . and eventually finds a modern-day hero of his own. But the pleasures of the book are as much to do with the fascinating panoply of characters, war heroes all, British, Commonwealth and Cretan, whose exploits contributed so much to Hitler's downfall.” —The Independent (London)

“In the thoroughly absorbing Natural Born Heroes, which tracks heroism from the times of Zeus and Odysseus to the World War II bravery of a motley crew of fighters, Christopher McDougall makes it clear that . . . heroes, both ancient and modern, are not somehow supernaturally endowed after all. Indeed, they may come by their skills quite naturally. . . . His extensive knowledge of fitness training, nutrition and physiology winds artfully around a tale of superhuman resistance during the Nazi occupation of the Greek island of Crete. . . . [McDougall] solves this mystery with a witty eye for every detail, inspiring his own captive audience along the way.” — BookPage (The Top Pick of the Month: Nonfiction)

“Compelling . . . engaging . . . provocative . . . with inquiries into the nature of heroism. . . . True heroism, as the ancients understood, isn’t about strength or boldness or even courage. It’s about compassion.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Riveting. . . . A well-done recounting of a truly heroic episode of WWII. . . . In absorbing detail, McDougall describes how . . . ‘ordinary’ men who were far from stereotypically tough, battle-hardened warriors . . . trekked across tortuous mountain terrain while avoiding a massive German dragnet..” —Booklist

About the Author

Christopher McDougall is the author of Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen. He began his career as an overseas correspondent for the Associated Press, covering wars in Rwanda and Angola. He now lives and writes (and runs, swims, climbs, and bear-crawls) among the Amish farms around his home in rural Pennsylvania.

www.chrismcdougall.com

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

You’ve got to put yourself in the Butcher’s shoes.
            You’re General Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller, one of two German commanders on the Greek island of Crete. Hitler is worried that something terrible is about to happen right under your nose, something that could severely damage the German offensive, but you’ve got it all under control. The island is small and your manpower is huge. You’ve got 100,000 seasoned troops, with search planes prowling the mountains and patrol boats monitoring the beaches. You’ve got the Gestapo at your service, and you’re scary enough to be called the Butcher. No one is going to mess with you.
            And then you wake up on the morning of April 24, 1944, to discover the other you is gone. Your fellow commander, General Heinrich Kreipe, has disappeared. There’s no hint of foul play: no shots fired, no bloodshed, no signs of a scuffle. Stranger yet, the general vanished from somewhere around the capital, the most heavily guarded corner of the island. Whatever happened, it happened right in front of the general’s own men. Kreipe was no toy soldier, either; he was a serious hard case, a Great War survivor with an Iron Cross who’d battled his way up through the ranks and just transferred in from the Russian front. He had a personal security force and an armed driver and a villa surrounded by attack dogs, razor wire, and machine-gun posts.
            So where was he?
            All the Butcher knew was this: shortly after 9 p.m., General Kreipe left his command base and drove into the center of town. It was Saturday, so foot traffic was thicker than usual. Troops from outlying garrisons had been bused in for a movie, and the streets were jammed with strolling soldiers. The movie had just let out; the Butcher knew this because hundreds of soldiers had seen the black sedan with the general’s flags on the bumper inching its way through the streets. General Kreipe’s driver had to honk them out of the way, even rolling down his window at one point to holler, “GENERAL’S WAGEN!” Kreipe was right there in the front passenger seat, nodding his head and returning salutes. Every road in every direction at every half-mile was guarded by checkpoints. The general’s car passed Gestapo headquarters and funneled through the last checkpoint, the narrow opening at the Canae Gate. “Gute Nacht,” the general’s driver called. The sedan slid beneath the crossbar and exited the city.
            Early the next morning, the general’s car was discovered on a scruff of beach just outside the city. The general and his driver were gone, as were the eagle flags from the front bumper. Around the car was a weird scattering of rubbish: an Agatha Christie novel, Cadbury milk chocolate wrappers, a bunch of English “Players” cigarette butts, and a green British commando beret. On the dashboard was a letter. It was addressed to “The German authorities on Crete” and said that Kreipe had been captured by a British raiding force and taken off the island. The letter was ceremonially sealed with red wax and signet rings, and included a jaunty postscript:
            We are very sorry to have to leave this beautiful motor car behind.
            Something didn’t add up. The general must have been grabbed after he left the city, but his car was found only a twenty-minute drive away. So within that brief window, these mystery men had executed an ambush, disarmed and subdued two prisoners, smoked a pack of cigarettes, shared some snacks, lost a hat, melted wax, and what else—browsed a paperback? Was this an abduction or a family vacation? Plus that stretch of coast was floodlit by klieg lights and patrolled by planes. Why would seasoned commandos choose the most exposed part of the island as their extraction point? From that beach, their escape boat would have had to head north into hundreds of miles of German-occupied waters, making them sitting ducks as soon as the sun came up.
            Whoever did this was trying very hard to look very British, very cool and under control. But the Butcher wasn’t buying it. He was in the midst of his second World War and to his knowledge, no general had ever been kidnapped before. There was no precedent for this sort of thing, no tactics, so they had to be making it up as they went along. Which meant that sooner or later, they’d make a blunder and fall right into his hands. Already, they’d made a big mistake: they’d badly underestimated their opponent. Because the Butcher had seen through their feints and realized two things:
            They were still on his island, and they were running for their lives.

            On a spring morning in 2012, I stood where the general’s car was found, wondering the same thing as the Butcher: where could they possibly go?
            At my back is the Aegean Sea. In front, there’s nothing but a snarl of chest-high brambles leading to a sheer cliff. In the far distance and cutting the island in half like a giant border fence is the craggy range of snowy Mount Ida, the highest climb in Greece. The only possible escape is the southern coast, but the only way to get there is up and over that eight-thousand-foot peak. The trek alone would be a challenge, but pulling it off with a belligerent prisoner in tow and a massive manhunt hot on your heels? Impossible.
            “Ah!” There’s a shout from somewhere inside the brambles, then a hand jerks up like it’s hailing a cab. “Come toward me.”
            Chris White remains rooted in place, his arm high so I can find him and his eyes pinned on whatever he’s spotted. I heave my backpack over my shoulders and begin fighting my way toward him, thorns tearing at my clothes. No one alive knows more about what happened to General Kreipe than Chris White, which is odd, because there’s no reason Chris White should know anything about what happened to General Kreipe. Chris isn’t a scholar or a military historian. He doesn’t speak Greek or German, and as a lifelong pacifist he has no real taste for war stories. By day, Chris is a social worker who manages care for the elderly and the mentally disabled in the quiet English city of Oxford. But at night and on weekends, he’s buried in a stack of topographical maps and out-of-print books in a little wooden shack behind his country cottage. In the great tradition of British amateur obsessives, Chris has spent the past ten years piecing together the mystery the Butcher faced on the morning of April 24, 1944: how do you make a German general disappear on an island swarming with German troops?
            It was a magical idea. That’s what Chris White loved about it. The scheme was so perfectly, defiantly un-Nazi: instead of force and brutality, the plan was to trip Hitler up with ingenuity and finesse. There would be no bullets, no blood, no civilians in the middle. Killing the general would have made him just another casualty of war, but not killing him would flip the tables and inflict a touch of fear in the men who were terrorizing Europe. The sheer mystery would make the Nazis crazy and plant an itch of doubt in every soldier’s mind: if these phantoms could get the most protected man on a fortified island, then who was safe?
            But getting him was only the beginning. The Butcher would throw everything he had into the manhunt, and what he had was a lot. He’d have troops swarming the woods, attack dogs searching for scent, recon planes buzzing the mountains and clicking photos of goat trails for ground scouts to later follow on foot. The Gestapo would offer bribes and rewards and activate its network of local traitors. The Butcher had more than one soldier for every four civilians, giving him a tighter security ratio than you’d find in a maximum-security prison. And that’s what Crete had become: a prison fenced in by the sea. Crete had never been an ordinary island in the first place, at least not in Hitler’s eyes. The Führer counted on Crete as a crucial transit point for German troops and supplies heading to the Russian front, and he intended to keep it safe as a bank vault. The slightest hint of any Cretan resistance, Hitler had ordered, should be crushed with eine gewisse brutalität—“a good bit of brutality.”

            Chris White parted the brambles and pointed. In the dirt, a thin scuff led to a low tunnel through the brush. It wasn’t much of a scuff, but it was the best we’d seen all morning.
            “They went this way,” Chris said. “Let’s go.”
            Chris took point. Brambles twined across the trail like netting and the footing was a loose jumble of scrabbly stone. The scuff kept twisting places it shouldn’t—veering back on itself, disappearing into overgrown gullies—but Chris was unstoppable. Whenever the trail seemed to die for good, Chris would disappear in the mess until eventually, his hand shot back up: “AH!”
            No, my gut kept telling me. This is all wrong. Why would anyone blaze a trail that runs smack into a boulder? Or in and out of a gully instead of alongside it? I had to remind myself we were steering by goat logic; on Crete, goats break the trail and goatherds follow, adapting themselves to the animals’ feel for the landscape. And once I stopped doubting the goat logic, I noticed the slickness of the stones and remembered something else: water only travels in one direction. No matter how weirdly these washouts twisted us around, we had to be gaining altitude. Imperceptibly, we were wormholing our way up the cliff.
            “Doesn’t it take your breath away?” said Chris. “Before we came, it’s possible no one had walked through here since the German occupation. It’s like going into an ancient tomb.”
            Soon Chris and I were beetling along at a steady clip. Well, Chris beetled and I followed. He broke the trail and ranged ahead while I was focused on just keeping pace. I’m ten years younger than Chris and I thought in much better shape, so it was humbling to face the fact that this sixty-year-old social-services administrator who never works out and looks like he’s best suited for a comfy chair and a Sunday paper could shame me with his endurance and uphill agility.
            “It must come naturally,” Chris shrugged.
            Did it? That’s what I was on Crete to find out.
            The ancients called Crete “the Sliver,” and when your plane is coming in for a landing with no hint of land below, you’ll know why. Right when you think you’re about to plunge into the sea, the pilot banks and the island bursts into view, frothy around the edges as if it just popped up from the deep. Looming in the harbor behind the airport is a gloomy stone fortress, a sixteenth-century Venetian relic that only adds to the sensation that you’re punching through a portal in time and about to enter a world summoned back from the past.
            Crete has another nickname—“the Island of Heroes”—which I’d only discovered by accident. I was researching Pheidippides, the ancient Greek messenger who inspired the modern marathon, when I came across an odd reference to a modern-day Pheidippides named George Psychoundakis, better known as “the Clown.” The Clown was awe-inspiring. When Hitler’s forces invaded Crete, he transformed himself overnight from a sheep farmer into a mountain-running messenger for the Resistance. Somehow, George was able to master challenges that would stagger an Olympic athlete: he could scramble snowy cliffs with a sixty-pound pack on his back, run fifty-plus miles through the night on a starvation diet of boiled hay, and outfox a Gestapo death squad that had him cornered. George wasn’t even a trained soldier; he was a shepherd living a sleepy, peaceful life until the day German parachutes popped open over his home.
            Until then, I’d thought the secrets of ancient heroes like Pheidippides were either half myth or lost to antiquity, but here was a normal man pulling off the same feats 2,500 years later. And he wasn’t alone: George himself told the story of a fellow shepherd who singlehandedly saved a villageful of women and children from a German massacre. The Germans had come to search for weapons and became suspicious when they realized all the men were missing and none of the women were talking. The German commander had the women lined up for execution. Just as he was about to say “Fire!” his skull exploded. A shepherd named Costi Paterakis had raced to the rescue through the woods, arriving just in time to take aim from a quarter-mile away. The rest of the Germans scattered for cover—and fell right into the crosshairs of Resistance fighters who arrived on Costi’s heels.
            “It still seems to me one of the most spectacular moments of the war,” said a British Resistance operative whose own life was saved by the silence of those brave women. The story is so stirring, it’s easy to forget what it really required. Costi had to ignore self-preservation and propel his body toward danger; he had to cover miles of cross-country terrain at top speed without a stumble; he had to quickly master rage, panic, and exhaustion as he slowed his pounding heart to steady his gun. It wasn’t just an act of courage—it was a triumph of natural heroism and physical self-mastery.
            The more I looked into Crete during the Resistance, the more stories like that I found. Was there really an American high school student fighting alongside the rebels behind German lines? Who was the starving prisoner who escaped a POW camp and turned himself into a master of retaliation known as the Lion? And most of all: what really happened when a band of misfits tried to sneak the German commander off the island? Even the Nazis realized that when they landed on Crete, they’d entered an entirely different kind of fight. On the day he was sentenced to death for war crimes, Hitler’s chief of staff didn’t blame the Nuremberg judges for his fate. He didn’t blame his troops for losing, or even the Führer for letting him down. He blamed the Island of Heroes.
            So what exactly were the Cretans tapping into? There was a time when that question wouldn’t be a mystery. For much of human history, the art of the hero wasn’t left up to chance; it was a multidisciplinary endeavor devoted to optimal nutrition, physical self-mastery, and mental conditioning. The hero’s skills were studied, practiced, and perfected, then passed along from parent to child and teacher to student. The art of the hero wasn’t about being brave; it was about being so competent that bravery wasn’t an issue. You weren’t supposed to go down for a good cause; the goal was to figure out a way not to go down at all. Achilles and Odysseus and the rest of the classical heroes hated the thought of dying and scratched for every second of life. A hero’s one crack at immortality was to be remembered as a champion, and champions don’t die dumb. It all hinged on the ability to unleash the tremendous resources of strength, endurance, and agility that many people don’t realize they already have.
            That’s why the Greeks didn’t wait for heroes to appear; they built their own instead. They perfected a hero’s diet, which curbs hunger, boosts power, and converts body fat into performance fuel. They developed techniques for controlling fear and adrenaline surges, and they learned to tap into the remarkable hidden strength of the body’s elastic tissue, which is far more powerful and effective than muscle. More than two thousand years ago, they got serious about the business of releasing the hero inside us all. And then they were gone.
            Except on one small island, where a certain ancient art endured.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Knopf; First Edition (April 14, 2015)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0307594963
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0307594969
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.55 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1.5 x 9.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #717,375 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3,660 in Adventure Travel (Books)
- #6,354 in World War II History (Books)
- #8,515 in Exercise & Fitness (Books)

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Trained as a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press, Christopher McDougall covered wars in Rwanda and Angola before writing his international bestseller, "Born to Run." His fascination with the limits of human potential led him to his next book, "Natural Born Heroes." McDougall also created the Outside magazine web series, "Art of the Hero."

http://www.outsideonline.com/fitness/agility-and-balance/natural-born-heroes

Born to Run is currently being made into a feature film starring Matthew McConaughey.

You can find more information about Christopher McDougall on his website:

chrismcdougall.com

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Stephen N. Greenleaf

but as McDougall displayed in another favorite book of mine

Reviewed in the United States on August 17, 2015

Verified Purchase

What do the following have in common?

· LeBron James

· Brazil

· Arthur Evans

· Patrick Leigh Fermor

· Tom Myers

· Fairbairn & Sykes

· Shanghai

· Pankration (Greek)

· George Hebert

· Norina Bentzel

· Xan Fielding

· The Minotaur

· Wing Chun

· Steve Maxwell

· The Arizona desert

· John Pendleberry

· a glass eye

· Fritz Schubert, a/k/a “the Turk”

· Erwan Le Corre

· Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller

· Dr. Phil Maffetone

· Dwight Howard

· William Banting

· Hitler

· Churchill

· Crete

If you had a difficult time discerning connections, don’t feel badly about it (although the last three items provide a strong indication of one topic). These topics—among dozens of other possible examples—are tied together in the two books written by Chris McDougall as one book: Natural Born Heroes: How a Daring Band of Misfits Mastered the Lost Secrets of Strength and Endurance (2015). In this book, McDougall examines the German invasion and subsequent resistance movement on Crete during WWII. British Special Operations Executive (SOE) agents aided the Cretans during the occupation. These tales provide the central core of the book. Around this central core—fascinating and cinematic in its own right--McDougall constructs a second book about human performance from ancient Minoan culture to contemporary Parkour. In lesser hands this could have resulted in a mess, but as McDougall displayed in another favorite book of mine, Born to Run, he can weave and integrate stories as a master. The end result is a delightfully fun and entertaining book.

The story of the invasion of Crete and the Cretan resistance probably isn’t well known among Americans, but it includes some incredible tales. Certainly the most astonishing feat—anywhere—involved successfully kidnapping of a German general. The heist was conducted by British agents, led by Patrick Leigh Fermor, and Cretan resistance-fighters (and a largely sympathetic populace). Some may recognize Fermor as among the best English prose stylists of the 20th century. His books include an account of his walk across Europe starting in 1933 (as a teenager) as well as accounts of Greece, monastic life, and the Caribbean. But one topic that he did not write at length about (other than in official reports) was his part in successfully kidnapping the German general and getting the general off the island of Crete on to Egypt. (If you think that this begs for a movie, it spawned one long ago: “Ill Met ByMoonlight” (or “Night Ambush”), starring Dirk Bogarde as Fermor. Bogarde, by the way, was a dashing British film star of his era. Billy Moss, one of Fermor’s accomplices in the exploit, wrote the book.)

But McDougall wanted to write a book about human performance, also. And so in recounting this tale of adventure—with lots of James Bond-like suave from the Brits—he also dives into the issue of how these men, Cretans and Britons, could have mastered such as harsh terrain while alluding capture by the forces of “The Butcher”, the other German general on the island. This tale of extraordinary human performance allows McDougall to tell about Brits learning to survive in the harsh Shanghai underworld of the early 20th century; about how the Frenchman George Hebert developed and trained people to survive and thrive using nature as a training ground; about how Erwan Le Corre resurrected Hebert’s genius and brought it into the 21st century; about how Tom Myers revealed that the fascia (connective tissue) provides the architecture and elastic energy that powers the human body; and about how Parkour demonstrates practical application of Myers’s insights about the elastic energy of the fascia. McDougall also hunted down the reclusive Phil Maffetone to learn about how he revolutionized diet and training techniques for distance runners like Stu Mittleman along lines that Paleo/Primal adherents will recognize as kindred thinking. And McDougall relates how distance running guru Dr. Timothy Noakes, the high priest of high-carb for distance runners, underwent a conversion of Pauline-like intensity to embrace a low-carb, high-fat “Banting” diet. (“I was quite wrong. Sorry, everyone.”)

I could go on at great length about this book because it contains so many different angles, so many intriguing side-stories. But I will stop here to and sum it all up by saying that I found the book great fun. It provided well-told stories about fascinating stuff (WWII history and human performance are among my favorite topics), but even if you don’t’ share my predilections; I believe that most readers would enjoy this book.

Side note: Because I didn’t read Born to Run but listened to it twice, I decide to listen to Natural Born Heroes. Alas, the listening experience was not as good. Mostly because the reader attempted—rather poorly—too many accents: British, Greek, American, French, and so on. He mastered none. Perhaps you’d have to get Meryl Streep or resurrect Olivier to do it right. In addition, because there was so much information, so much learning, I bought the book for my Kindle for my second and later readings.

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Duff

Good stories, but skips around too much.

Reviewed in the United States on June 11, 2015

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There's a lot I like about the book, but quite a few things I found annoying and they are listed here in other reviews.
The story of the island of Crete and the soldiers and islanders fighting the Nazi's, is very good. In between those chapters he goes back and forth and skips around between expert knife throwers, parkour folks, natural movement gurus, to a chiropractor who thinks he knows more about the human body and fitness than the entire medical world. There's many interesting facts but not sure how it weaves itself into the story. Perhaps this should have been 2 books. I cannot put the fat diet, knife throwing, parkour , into the ww2 Crete story. Both are interesting, the WW2 story more so, but it was annoying going back and forth. There seemed to be some buildup to the ending but there was no suprise or anything, just a good ending which you figured had to end well anyway . I liked Born to Run. out of that book we were supposed to eat chia seeds and eat lots of beans for endurance runs. In this book you learn - from a chiropractor - to not eat sugar, processed foods or beans and just eat fat and protein rich foods and vegetables. Which does make some sense to a degree, but not sure a chiropractor is qualified to be a resource for that in the book. And I think the link to the story is weak at best .

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Larry Ellis

How the Allies Won The War!

Reviewed in the United States on September 27, 2017

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I think someone said that the farther we get away from historical events the better we understand them. World War II is almost beyond living memory now and yet stories keep emerging about till now unsung but consequential contributions to the Allied effort – the effort that kept the world from coming under the thumb of Hitler and his Third Reich.
One such story is the battle for Crete. And that story, fantastic as it is, serves as the backbone of Christopher McDougall’s latest book, Natural Born Heroes.
McDougal came to fame as an author with the success of his first book, Born To Run, which told the story of an obscure, hidden indigenous tribe somewhere in the wilds of Mexico that produces men who are able to run unbelievable distances at unbelievable speeds – without shoes. Like that book, Natural Born Heroes is also concerned with local, untrained men who are able to accomplish almost unbelievable physical feats.
I would describe this book as layered. It’s not strictly chronological. It weaves back and forth between the main story – the capture of a German General during the occupation of Crete during World War II – and stories about Greek culture and the daily lives of the type of men who carried off this breathtaking capture and escape. The book is filled with stories about the various kinds of physical and dietary regimens being discovered and practiced today that mimic or approximate the native lifestyle of the hardy Cretan. He writes about Parkour, primal eating and various kinds of self-defense systems.
I read a lot of books, but it has been a long time since I enjoyed a book so thoroughly. I found myself making time in my days to get back to it and looking forward to the hours set aside for it. The story of the battle of Crete is enough, in and of itself, to rivet one’s attention. As the book tells us, when Hitler’s Chief of Staff was being tried for war crimes, he blamed the loss of the war not on the resolve of the British or the entry of the Americans intro the European theater but on the dogged resistance of the Cretan citizenry whose efforts stymied the German plan for immediate subjugation. Hitler had planned to move his armies to the Russian front in the spring and defeat the Russians in battle there before the terrible winter set in and his troops be caught in ice and snow.
But the Greeks gave him more trouble than he ever imagined. In fact, it took longer for Germany to establish its command on the tiny island of Crete than it did for them to conquer France. Because of the resistance of the Cretans, Hitler was not able to move his armies to the Russian front in a timely way and because of that they did get mired in the awful Russian winter and because of that they lost on the Russian front and, according at least to Hitler’s number one man, because of that , they lost the war.
That is saying a mouthful: that the freedom that the world has enjoyed for the last seventy years or so is due in large part to the pranks and hardheadedness of a local citizenry that prevailed against incredible odds.
But the other stuff is great, too. The forays back into the ancient history of Greece and Crete. The stories of King Minas and the Minotaur. The stories of Aristotle and Plato. The stories of Troy and Sparta; of Odysseus and Achilles and Ajax.
McDougal has been criticized elsewhere for filling the book up with stories that are unrelated to each other. I disagree with that criticism. Even if the ancient myths and the character of the men who participated in the resistance in 20th century Crete are separated by millennia, it all makes sense to me. The past does matter and it does affect the character of a place and its inhabitants.
The stories of modern day exercise and diet, even if not precisely the same as that of the Cretans, is nonetheless dramatic and informative. We ought to be stronger and more healthy than we are and this book is a kind of expose for why we aren’t and what we might do to improve our lot.
Overtime: A Basketball Parable

24 people found this helpful

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Jim C.

Awesome

Reviewed in the United States on April 17, 2024

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Excellent read and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

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MR A R DENNE

Unleash the hero within

Reviewed in France on January 19, 2020

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One of the most inspiring books I’ve ever read. A great combination of history and an invitation to make yourself and your life useful to others.

SeanC

Amazing book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 22, 2019

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This got recommended in my running group. I’d read McDougalls first book Born to Run so the format of this book was totally unexpected.

Part war story part fitness science. I enjoy WW2 history so it was a pleasure to have a book combining both.

McDougall uses science based fitness techniques to explain how British intelligence and a small band of resistance fighters manage to kidnap a German General and escape from heavily fortified Crete at the height of WW2.

Well intertwined, the book had me online checking facts and sourcing details from both sides of the story more than once.

If you like adventure, WW2, fitness science or running you’ll enjoy this.

5 people found this helpful

Pam Z.

Fun to read, learned a lot and felt inspired!

Reviewed in Canada on May 14, 2017

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Really enjoyed the read. A gripping (and funny) story of WWII resistance shenanigans which tips into modern day diet and exercise philosophies. I will be reading it again! I've read "Born to Run" many times as well and find it inspiring. McDougall has a way with words!

Vinobuono

Amazing page turner. A must read!

Reviewed in Italy on June 22, 2017

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I thoroughly enjoyed this book for its perfect mix of history, facts, fiction science and very good storytelling.
It intertwines the history of Cretan Resistance during WWII with science and technique about running, fitness and survival. The health and sports conscious will find lots of food for thought, but so will someone interested in modern history and the making of heroes from Ancient Greece to modernity. I personally had no interest whatsoever in war stories and found myself hooked in this rollercoaster sort of book. Then I learnt a great deal about physiology and training and nutrition. I was motivated to improve my training technique and purpose.
Highly recommended.

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Amazon Customer

Great read

Reviewed in Australia on October 6, 2023

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I have listened to this book over many kilometres of trail running and have been so engrossed that the distance disappears without my even noticing. It is not just a gripping read, it is also very educational both historically and in terms of how our bodies work (or how they are supposed to work). It has inspired me to research more on diet and micro fascia engagement.

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Natural Born Heroes: How a Daring Band of Misfits Mastered the Lost Secrets of Strength and Endurance Hardcover – Deckle Edge, April 14, 2015

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