Flashman and the Repetition of Doom

Having now chewed through much of this hilarious series, I have a whole new, and deeper respect for the cycles of history.

Baically, the series chronicles the (supposedly) true adventures of a fictional character who is lionized as a hero in Imperial Britain, but is in fact an utter coward, drunk, and lecherous bully. Insert various Imperial adventure and hilarity ensues. Between the bawdy misadventures there is a lot of satire and social commentary, and a fair bit of action.

The main point though that I get from the series is that wow, we should never, ever , ever have gotten involved in any patch of dirt between Turkey and Taiwan. Every time we have, and do, it blows up in our faces. The stories are set in the 1800's, but the seeds of them go back to the late 1700's, and echo to the modern day- afghanistan, egypt, crimea, pakistan, all the same old same old mess.

Highly enjoyable and worth a read. Racist, sexist, misogynistic, and a host of other words, but all in the service of the narrative (they were actually written from the 1960's-1990's) so much so that when the first came out US Reviewers thought they were actual memoirs from that time period.