Changing of the Guard
Regular price
€21.99
A TLS and a Prospect Book of the Year
A revelatory, explosive new analysis of the military today.
Over the first two decades of the twenty-first century the British Army fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, at considerable financial and human cost. Yet neither war achieved its objectives. Award-winning journalist Simon Akam questions why, and provides challenging but necessary answers. Composed from assiduous documentary research, field reportage, and hundreds of interviews, this book is a strikingly rich, nuanced portrait of one of our pivotal national institutions in a time of great stress.
This is as much a book about Britain, and about the politics of failure, as it is about the military.
Simon Akam (@simonakam, simonakam.com) held a Gap Year Commission in the British Army before attending Oxford University. He won a Fulbright scholarship to study at Columbia Journalism School in New York and in 2010 won the professional strand of The Guardian’s International Development Journalism Competition. He has worked for The New York Times, Reuters, and Newsweek, and is currently a contributing writer for The Economist’s 1843 magazine. His work has appeared in other publications including GQ, Bloomberg Businessweek, Outside, and The Atlantic. He co-hosts the writing podcast Always Take Notes (@takenotesalways, alwaystakenotes.com).