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Uncertain ground : citizenship in an age of endless, invisible war / Phil Klay.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Penguin Press, 2022Copyright date: ©2022Description: xix, 252 pages ; 24 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780593299241
  • 0593299248
Uniform titles:
  • Essays. Selections
Subject(s): Genre/Form:
Contents:
Death and memory -- How we mourned, why we fought -- Left behind -- What we're fighting for -- Fear and loathing in Mosul -- We have no idea what we're doing in Iraq. We didn't before we killed Suleimani -- War, loss, and unthinkable youth -- Citizen-soldier : moral risk and the modern military -- The good war -- Duty and pity -- The lesson of Eric Greitens, and the Navy SEALs who tried to warn us -- The warrior at the mall -- The soldiers we leave behind -- A history of violence -- After war, a failure of the imagination -- Fact and fiction -- Public rage won't solve any of our problems -- Visions of war and peace : literature and authority in World War I -- Tales of war and redemption -- Man of war -- Can the trauma of war lead to growth, despite the scars?
Summary: "When Phil Klay left the Marines a decade ago, after serving as an officer in Iraq, he found himself part of the community of veterans who have no choice but to grapple with the meaning of their wartime experiences-for themselves and for the country. American identity has always been bound up in war-from the revolutionary war of our founding, to the civil war that ended slavery, to the two world wars that launched America as a superpower. What did the current wars say about who we are as a country, and how should we respond as citizens? Unlike previous eras of war, few other Americans have had to do any real grappling with the endless, invisible wars of the post-9/11 world at all; in fact, increasingly, few people are even aware they are still going on. It's as if there's a dark star with a strong gravitational force that draws a relatively small number of soldiers and their families into its orbit, while remaining inconspicuous to most other Americans. In the meantime, the consequences of American military action abroad may be out of sight and out of mind, but they are very real indeed. This chasm between military and civilian in American life, and the moral blind spot it has created, is one of the great themes of Uncertain Ground, Phil Klay's powerful series of reckonings in essay form over the past ten years with some of our country's thorniest concerns. In the name of what do we ask young Americans to kill, and to die? In the name of what does this country hang together? As we see at every turn in these pages, those two questions have a great deal to do with one another, and how we answer them will go a long way toward deciding where our troubled country goes from here"-- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Dr. James Carlson Library NonFiction 359.9609 K63 Available 33111010990832
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 359.9609 K63 Available 33111010861058
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

From the National Book Award-winning author of Redeployment and Missionaries , an astonishing fever graph of the effects of twenty years of war in a brutally divided America.

When Phil Klay left the Marines a decade ago after serving as an officer in Iraq, he found himself a part of the community of veterans who have no choice but to grapple with the meaning of their wartime experiences--for themselves and for the country. American identity has always been bound up in war--from the revolutionary war of our founding, to the civil war that ended slavery, to the two world wars that launched America as a superpower. What did the current wars say about who we are as a country, and how should we respond as citizens?

Unlike in previous eras of war, relatively few Americans have had to do any real grappling with the endless, invisible conflicts of the post-9/11 world; in fact, increasingly few people are even aware they are still going on. It is as if these wars are a dark star with a strong gravitational force that draws a relatively small number of soldiers and their families into its orbit while remaining inconspicuous to most other Americans. In the meantime, the consequences of American military action abroad may be out of sight and out of mind, but they are very real indeed.

This chasm between the military and the civilian in American life, and the moral blind spot it has created, is one of the great themes of Uncertain Ground , Phil Klay's powerful series of reckonings with some of our country's thorniest concerns, written in essay form over the past ten years. In the name of what do we ask young Americans to kill, and to die? In the name of what does this country hang together? As we see at every turn in these pages, those two questions have a great deal to do with each another, and how we answer them will go a long way toward deciding where our troubled country goes from here.

"The essays in this book were originally published 2010-2021." -- Title page verso.

Includes index.

Death and memory -- How we mourned, why we fought -- Left behind -- What we're fighting for -- Fear and loathing in Mosul -- We have no idea what we're doing in Iraq. We didn't before we killed Suleimani -- War, loss, and unthinkable youth -- Citizen-soldier : moral risk and the modern military -- The good war -- Duty and pity -- The lesson of Eric Greitens, and the Navy SEALs who tried to warn us -- The warrior at the mall -- The soldiers we leave behind -- A history of violence -- After war, a failure of the imagination -- Fact and fiction -- Public rage won't solve any of our problems -- Visions of war and peace : literature and authority in World War I -- Tales of war and redemption -- Man of war -- Can the trauma of war lead to growth, despite the scars?

"When Phil Klay left the Marines a decade ago, after serving as an officer in Iraq, he found himself part of the community of veterans who have no choice but to grapple with the meaning of their wartime experiences-for themselves and for the country. American identity has always been bound up in war-from the revolutionary war of our founding, to the civil war that ended slavery, to the two world wars that launched America as a superpower. What did the current wars say about who we are as a country, and how should we respond as citizens? Unlike previous eras of war, few other Americans have had to do any real grappling with the endless, invisible wars of the post-9/11 world at all; in fact, increasingly, few people are even aware they are still going on. It's as if there's a dark star with a strong gravitational force that draws a relatively small number of soldiers and their families into its orbit, while remaining inconspicuous to most other Americans. In the meantime, the consequences of American military action abroad may be out of sight and out of mind, but they are very real indeed. This chasm between military and civilian in American life, and the moral blind spot it has created, is one of the great themes of Uncertain Ground, Phil Klay's powerful series of reckonings in essay form over the past ten years with some of our country's thorniest concerns. In the name of what do we ask young Americans to kill, and to die? In the name of what does this country hang together? As we see at every turn in these pages, those two questions have a great deal to do with one another, and how we answer them will go a long way toward deciding where our troubled country goes from here"-- Provided by publisher.

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