American War (Italian Edition)

This book functions on two levels. On the first level, it is a Philip Dick-like fable that takes place against the backdrop of a dystopian near future when global warming has caused the inundation of America's coastline and North and South battle it out over the issue of fossil fuel. I found the second level more profound and more disturbing: El Akkad turns the tables on American policy in the Middle East and asks Americans how they would feel should the excesses that America has visited on the region--from interventions and civilian "collateral damage" to using the region and its peoples as pawns in a global struggle for hegemony--be visited on them. Rather than Palestinians and, more recently, Syrians spending their lives as refugees incarcerated in camps, American citizens, residents of the South, are so interned, dividing their camps into familiar geographic units (Alabama, Mississippi, etc.), much as Palestinians have done to ensure they do not lose track of home. And just as the United States bears more than a bit of responsibility for the use of poison gas in the region under Saddam Hussein and Bashar al-Asad, the Bouazizi Empire--named, in an ironic twist after the produce vendor whose public suicide ignited the Arab Spring--bears a similar responsibility for what it does to ensure its global position. Told from the vantage point of a young girl who becomes increasingly complicit in the horrors she experiences as the war leaves her no choice, El Akkad's book is pitch perfect for the tragedy of the contemporary Middle East.

Very important read. Lots of Relevant information

I am an idiot, but y'all should be very careful not to follow my example. If you search for and click on the American War novel in english (as you'd expect), then click on Kindle version, it becomes...an Italian version.This is a huge bummer, unless you notice and/or read fluent Italian, neither of which are true for me.

If Amazon's presentation layer becomes deceiving to the non-alert, then their business model comes under suspicion. I wanted to buy this novel, and ended up clicking on the Italian version with no apparent way to retrieve the error since Amazon immediately transmits to the kindle... as it should. The point is, why would Amazon present an Italian version to someone who has not given any indication of knowing how to read Italian. Recall that Amazon has dense individual data, avante garde prediction algorithms, and an otherwise wide characterization of each individual with any extended contact, for me since 1998. This situation is suspect. I'll be watching..

It seems to me the author is justifiably trying to tell Americans what horrors their policies and wars have unleashed in the Middle East - to tell them that what they have done there is exactly what others would do to them if given the chance for retribution. It's all there: the drones, a domestic Guantanamo, an American Shabra/Shatila massacre, the warring militias America unleashed in Iraq, retaliatory terrorist bombings by pre-programmed "Martyrs", trivial compensations, Great Power international politics disguised as freedom fighting, etc, etc, etc. He further tells Americans that they are capable just as much as the peoples they have belittled of descending into remorseless tribal warfare, especially if it is abetted by foreign assistance.Is the author getting even for all this thru the atrocities committed by the protagonist, Sarat? Or is he simply trying to say that the rest of the world has some basis for considering such vengeance, if only because of emotions inevitably unleashed by the universal experience and language of those who have experienced modern warfare firsthand. Is it a warning or a threat? Or is it simply a Hemingway-like recitation by a reporter who has also numbingly experienced such warfare? Does the human spirit (or perhaps even the conscience of a single individual) eventually triumph here over its basest tendencies, or are we left to ponder that all Americans are just as vulnerable as any other people of becoming genocidal monsters when given the opportunity?I can't answer these questions from the text. Perhaps the author intended it that way. But, if so, the reader is simply left at the end muttering, "The horror. Oh, the horror." Perhaps we Americans need to see and confront the horrors we create now, but how should the author and the reader go on to live life somehow after returning from the war, as they must do? The book's characters provide no guidance.

Hello Amazon - attention! The book is in Italian!!The reviews and most of the descriptions are in English.I can't find the English version for Kindle - where is it?Am happy I only got a Sample.I couldn't find a product description place to make a comment, so I put this alert in the Review sectionPlease proofread this page,Thanks

Very disappointing. While admittedly well written, American War is full of hatred, brutality, heartbreak, and death on a grand scale. I'm not sure what to take away from this book. I found it difficulty to sympathize with Sarat as the author intended, and at the end the justification for it all felt hollow.

I ordered the Kindle version...and just a moment too late realized that it was in Italian.

Credevo di aver comprato la versione inglese (il titolo è ingannevole), e invece mi accorgo che è scritto in italiano. E' possibile avere quella inglese? Devo comprarla di nuovo?Grazie.