'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
A powerful and revelatory eyewitness account of the American collapse in Afghanistan, its desperate endgame, and the war's echoing legacy.
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. The official evacuation process was a bureaucratic failure that led to a humanitarian catastrophe. Ackerman was drawn into an impromptu effort to arrange flights and negotiate with both Taliban and American forces to secure the safe evacuation of hundreds. These were desperate measures taken during a desperate end to America's longest war, but the success they achieved afforded a degree of redemption: and, for Ackerman, a chance to reconcile his past with his present.
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 with a tragic denouement. 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, who fought the war with courage and dedication, in good faith and at great personal cost. Understanding combatants' experiences and sacrifices demands reservoirs of wisdom and the gifts of an extraordinary storyteller. In Elliot Ackerman, this story has found that author.The Fifth Act is a first draft of history that feels like a timeless classic.
ELLIOT ACKERMAN is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels 2034, Red Dress In Black and White, Waiting for Eden, Dark at the Crossing, and Green on Blue, as well as the memoir Places and Names: On War, Revolution and Returning. His books have been nominated for the National Book Award, the Andrew Carnegie Medal in both fiction and nonfiction, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize among others. He is both a former White House Fellow and Marine, and served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart. He divides his time between New York City and Washington, D.C.
Title: The Fifth Act: America�s End in Afghanistan
Author: Ackerman, Elliot
ISBN: 9780008532673
Binding:
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication Date: 2022-08-18
Number of Pages: 112
Weight: 0.3991 kg
PRAISE FOR THE FIFTH ACT
'Both an intellectual and a man of action... [Ackerman] tells the story of the 'clusterf**k' unfolding as he holidays in Venice with his children. This conjunction of banality and evil is very striking' The Sunday Telegraph
'[Ackerman] writes with power and raw honesty about how combat leaves no-one untouched and the survivors guilty... Ackerman takes this story far beyond the wars he fought and focuses on the changes the US has been through in 20 years...The Fifth Act is not just about collapse abroad, but a warning about collapse at home'
The Times, Tom Tugendhat, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee
'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 Hope
'Making sense of chaos is never easy, but this powerful book does much to explain why America's debacle in Afghanistan ended the way it did ... Courage and folly, dedication and tragedy: Ackerman deftly captures all dimensions of a protracted foreign policy failure ... A must-read account of the end of America's longest war'
Kirkus Reviews (starred)
PRAISE FOR ELLIOT ACKERMAN'S PLACES AND NAMES
'[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. 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
'It's so readable I devoured the book in one plane journey ... a master of dagger-sharp prose and memorable detail'
The Times