Courage Under Fire: Testing Epictetus's Doctrines in a Laboratory of Human Behavior

In September 1965, US Navy pilot James Bond Stockdale was shot down over North Vietnam and became a prisoner of war. What followed was an eight-year test of ancient Stoic philosophy under the most extreme conditions imaginable.

Courage Under Fire is Stockdale's account of how the teachings of the Greek philosopher Epictetus-a former slave who had known suffering-sustained him as he led his fellow prisoners through systematic torture, years of solitary confinement, and psychological warfare d...