The Fifth Act

America's End in Afghanistan

The Fifth Act
Elliot Ackerman
Our Price:
NZ$ 42.99
Hardback
h222 x 141mm - 112pg
18 Aug 2022 UK
International import eta 7-19 days
9780008532673
Out Of Stock
Currently no stock in-store, stock is sourced to your order
' His understanding of war is so profound that one feels like secrets have been revealed - truths - information that one day may be necessary for our survival' SEBASTIAN JUNGER, author of WAR and TRIBE How and why did American involvement in Afghanistan end in tragedy? Elliot Ackerman left the American military ten years ago, but his time in Afghanistan and Iraq with the Marines and, later, as a CIA paramilitary officer marked him indelibly. When the Taliban began to close in on Kabul in August of 2021 and the Afghan regime began its death spiral, he found himself pulled back into the conflict. Afghan nationals who had, for years, worked closely with the American military and intelligence communities now faced brutal reprisal and sought frantically to flee the country with their families. The official US government evacuation process was a bureaucratic failure that led to a humanitarian catastrophe. The Fifth Act is an astonishing human document that brings the weight of twenty years of war to bear on a single week at its bitter end. Using the dramatic rescue efforts in Kabul as his lattice, Ackerman weaves in a personal history of the war' s long progress, beginning with the initial invasion in the months after 9/11. It is a play in five acts, the fifth act being the story' s tragic denouement, a prelude to Afghanistan' s dark future. Any reader who wants to understand what went wrong with the war' s trajectory will find a trenchant accounting here. And yet The Fifth Act is not an exercise in finger-pointing: it brings readers into close contact with a remarkable group of characters, American and Afghan, who fought the war with courage and dedication, in good faith and at great personal cost. Understanding combatants' experiences and sacrifices while reckoning with the complex bottom line of the post-9/11 wars is not an easy balance; it demands reservoirs of wisdom and the gifts of an extraordinary storyteller. It asks for an author willing to grapple with certain hard-earned truths. In Elliot Ackerman, this story has found that author. The Fifth Act is a first draft of history that feels like a timeless classic.
EARLY PRAISE FOR THE FIFTH ACT' The American betrayal of Afghanistan took twenty years. Elliot Ackerman, a participant and witness, tells the story with unsparing honesty in this intensely personal chronicle' George Packer, author of The Unwinding and Last Best HopePRAISE FOR ELLIOT ACKERMAN' S PLACES AND NAMES' What a great, honest book - the kind that makes one feel lucky to have in one' s hands . . . His understanding of war is so profound that one feels like secrets have been revealed - truths - information that one day may be necessary for our survival. Well done' Sebastian Junger, author of Tribe' Perhaps the most striking war memoir of the year . . . Places and Names is as clean and spare in its prose as it is sharp and unsparing in timely observation' TIME magazine' [A] spare, beautiful memoir . . . Places and Names is a classic meditation on war, how it compels and resists our efforts to order it with meaning. In simple, evocative sentences, with sparing but effective glances at poetry and art, [Ackerman] weaves memories of his deployments with his observations in and near Syria. He pulls off a literary account of war that is accessible to those who wonder ' what it' s like' while ringing true to those who-each in his or her own way-already know' The New York Times' [Ackerman' s] descriptions of Syria, which he visited as a writer, were so painfully evocative for me that I had to stop reading for a time. His vivid, sparse prose bears comparison to that of Tim O' Brien in The Things They Carried or Norman Lewis in Naples ' 44; Places and Names has the same clear-eyed view of what war is' Spectator' It' s so readable I devoured the book in one plane journey . . . a master of dagger-sharp prose and memorable detail' The Times
Elliot Ackerman is a former White House Fellow and Marine, serving five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan where he received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor and the Purple Heart. He has written five novels including 2034 which was a New York Times bestseller. His books have been nominated for the National Book Award, three times for the Andrew Carnegie Medal in both fiction and non-fiction, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize among others. His writing often appears in Esquire, The New Yorker, and The New York Times where he is a contributing opinion writer.
Status: Indent title, imported to order
ISBN-13: 9780008532673
Published: 18 Aug 2022
Published In: United Kingdom
Imprint: William Collins
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Format: Hardback
Height: 222mm
Width: 141mm
Spine: 10mm
Weight: 270g
Pages: 112

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