\n A philosophically rich critique of state violence and mass apathy.\n <\/p>\n
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An Egyptian Canadian journalist writes searchingly of this time of war.<\/p>\n
\u201cRules, conventions, morals, reality itself: all exist so long as their existence is convenient to the preservation of power.\u201d So writes El Akkad, who goes on to state that one of the demands of modern power is that those subject to it must imagine that some group of people somewhere are not fully human. El Akkad\u2019s pointed example is Gaza, the current destruction of which, he writes, is causing millions of people around the world to examine the supposedly rules-governed, democratic West and declare, \u201cI want nothing to do with this.\u201d El Akkad, author of the novel American War <\/i>(2017), discerns hypocrisy and racism in the West\u2019s defense of Ukraine and what he views as indifference toward the Palestinian people. No stranger to war zones himself\u2014El Akkad was a correspondent in Afghanistan and Iraq\u2014he writes with grim matter-of-factness about murdered children, famine, and the deliberate targeting of civilians. With no love for Zionism lost, he offers an equally harsh critique of Hamas, yet another one of the \u201centities obsessed with violence as an ethos, brutal in their treatment of minority groups who in their view should not exist, and self-\u00addecreed to be the true protectors of an entire religion.\u201d Taking a global view, El Akkad, who lives in the U.S., finds almost every government and society wanting, and not least those, he says, that turn away and pretend not to know, behavior that we\u2019ve seen before and that, in the spirit of his title, will one day be explained away until, in the end, it comes down to \u201ca quiet unheard reckoning in the winter of life between the one who said nothing, did nothing, and their own soul.\u201d<\/p>\n
A philosophically rich critique of state violence and mass apathy.<\/p><\/div>\n
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Pub Date:<\/b> Feb. 25, 2025<\/p>\n
ISBN:<\/b> 9780593804148<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n
Page Count:<\/b> 224<\/p>\n
Publisher:<\/b> Knopf<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n
Review Posted Online:<\/b> Dec. 14, 2024<\/p>\n
Kirkus Reviews Issue:<\/b> Jan. 15, 2025<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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