hardcover
237 pages
ISBN: 1594030502
$25.95 List price
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Dawn over Baghdad
How the U.S. Military Is Using Bullets and Ballots to Remake Iraq
(paperback)
Early in 2004 Karl Zinsmeister spent several weeks with U.S. soldiers in the most dangerous parts of the Sunni Triangle. He participated in raids against insurgents and watched the soldiers engage in daily diplomacy with ordinary Iraqis trying to put their lives back together. Dawn Over Bagdad is the result of that trip—a journey through Iraq’s urban neighborhoods, rural villages, and guerrilla snake pits. In making this trip, Zinsmeister talks with the GIs and their commanders at an intimate gut-level and shows exactly how young American soldiers are dealing with a terrorist insurrection and planting the seeds of a democracy.
In the spring of 2005, Zinsmeister returned to Iraq for another extended period of reporting shortly after the historic elections there made the purple dye-stained finger a symbol of hope. The new material he has added to this edition is hopeful too and in distinct contrast to the gloomy picture of America’s presence in this war zone so often painted by the mainstream media. The other side of the story, Dawn Over Bagdad is a gripping, up-to-the-minute report on America’s most urgent national struggle, as seen through the eyes of the U.S. servicemen and Iraqis who are trying to make a new country out of the most dangerous place in the world.
