The Changing of the Guard:
the British army since 9/11
Overview
A revelatory, explosive new analysis of the military today.
Over the first two decades of the twenty-first century, Western militaries changed enormously. Multi-year campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan had a considerable financial and human cost. Yet neither war achieved its objectives. This book questions why, and provides challenging but necessary answers.
Composed from assiduous research including hundreds of interviews, The Changing of the Guard is a strikingly rich, nuanced portrait of a military institution in a time of great stress. It is informed by conversations with soldiers who served in the British Army, and the politicians who directed them, as well as interviews with members of the US military and other allies who accompanied them, and the family members who loved and—on occasion—lost them.
Award-winning journalist Simon Akam, who spent a year in the British Army when he was 18, returned a decade later to see how the institution had changed. His book examines the relevance of the armed forces today—their social, economic, political, and cultural role. This is as much a book about the politics of failure, as it is about the military.
Details
- Format
- Size
- Extent
- ISBN
- RRP
- Pub date
- Rights held
- Hardback
- 6in x 9.2in
- 704 pages
- 9781950354498
- USD$35.00
- 6 April 2021
- UK & Cwealth (ex. Can)
Awards
- Winner of the 2022 The Society for Army Historical Research (SAHR) Best First Book Prize
Praise
“Akam’s beautifully written, from the inside out, account of the British Army’s reluctance to engage with the realities of recent small wars, in Afghanistan in particular, is a must-read for every serious student of modern military history. At one level, it explains how and why we managed to turn victory over Al Qaeda in Afghanistan into defeat at the hands of the Taliban. But this book is about much more than the army in Afghanistan—it is a parable about failure, the failure of a revered institution, with a proud history and an uncritical public, to come to terms with a changed and changing world.”
“Simon Akam delivers a devastating indictment of Britain’s military chiefs for overseeing the shocking decline of the nation’s armed forces.”
About the Author
Simon Akam (@simonakam, simonakam.com) held a Gap Year Commission in the British Army before attending Oxford University. He won a Fulbright scholarship to study at Columbia Journalism School in New York and in 2010 won the professional strand of The Guardian’s International Development Journalism Competition. He has worked for The New York Times, Reuters, and Newsweek, and is currently a contributing writer for The Economist’s 1843 magazine. His work has appeared in other publications including GQ, Bloomberg Businessweek, Outside, and The Atlantic. He co-hosts the writing podcast Always Take Notes (@takenotesalways, alwaystakenotes.com).
