Recent Publications

AFGHANISTAN

After We Kill You, We Will Welcome You Back as Honored Guests: Embedded in Afghanistan, by Ted Rall. New York: Hill and Wang, 2014. 226 pages. $26. Ted Rall weaves his personal narrative as an American journalist traveling independently in Afghanistan with historical background on the US-led invasion. Using a self-illustrated comic format, Rall traces a brief history of the relationship between the US and the Taliban prior to the September 11 attacks before diving into his arrival in Afghanistan in 2001 as the war began. Through his account, he seeks to clarify misconceptions of the war and shed light on the Afghan experience, even speaking with Taliban members and their sympathizers. He picks up his story again in 2010, when he returns to Afghanistan un-embedded to record the changes the country had undergone years after the US invasion. Using satire, whimsical illustrations, personal pictures, and historical context, Rall gives a blunt explanation of the war from a civilian perspective and critiques the practice of embedded journalism. (EO)

IRAN

One Woman’s War: Da (Mother); The Memoirs of Seyyedeh Zahra Hoseyni, translated by Paul Sprachman. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda, 2014. 728 pages. $35. In One Woman’s War, Seyyedeh Zahra Hoseyni recalls her life as a nurse and fighter in the Iran-Iraq War. Recorded through over 1,000 hours of interviews with Hoseyni as part of a project to gather Iranian women’s oral histories of the Iran-Iraq War, and translated from Persian by Paul Sprachman, the memoir, originally titled Da (Mother), tells the story of a woman who at 17 years old was ready to die in defense of her town and the ideals of the Islamic Revolution. However, since the book was first published in Iran in 2008, it was made into a lauded animated film series. The memoir captures her struggle between the demands of war and the demands she places on herself as a Muslim woman and serves as an alternative to traditionally male-narrated war literature. (KD)

Iran Divided: The Historical Roots of Iranian Debates on Identity, Culture, and Governance in the Twenty-First Century, by Shireen T. Hunter. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014. 304 pages. $76. Shireen Hunter’s Iran Divided challenges the view that the disagreements surrounding the 2009 Iranian elections were simply a contest between the those with values of freedom and democracy and the repressive forces of religious authoritarianism. Hunter points out that many of the developments following the elections had roots in both Iran’s long history and its more recent past. Iran Divided ultimately determines that the current system of governance in Iran is stable and processdriven, with its Islamic leaders pursuing many aspects of modernity, including constitutionalism and republicanism. (JS)

IRAQ

The Corpse Exhibition and Other Stories of Iraq, by Hassan Blasim, translated by Jonathan Wright. New York: Penguin Books, 2014. 196 pages. $15. This collection of short stories by Iraqi author Hassan Blasim provides an unfiltered look at the American invasion of Iraq and its impact on Iraqi society. Blasim explores the terror, hopelessness, desperation, and elusive moments of hope experienced by Iraqis living in a war zone under a failed government. Blasim’s Iraq — one of aimless teenagers, paranoid extremists, and troubled men ceaselessly haunted by the horrors of war — leaves no room for Western audiences to insert sentiments of American heroism or hopes of an improved Iraq following the US invasion. (SG)

Fallujah Redux: The Anbar Awakening and the Struggle with al-Qaeda, by Daniel R. Green and William F. Mullen III. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2014. 192 pages. $37.95. Fallujah Redux is written about the 2007 Anbar counterinsurgency by veterans of the conflict. Daniel Green and William Mullen present unique, yet complementary accounts of the campaign against al-Qa‘ida insurgents in the town of Falluja. In their account of the battle for Falluja, both authors detail the struggles and victories associated with leading young soldiers into battle and earning the trust of a people plagued by decades of corruption and suspicious of...