Bloomsbury to Publish Into the Hands of the Soldiers Freedom and Chaos in Egypt and the Middle East by David D. Kirkpatrick
A poignant, deeply human portrait of Egypt during the Arab Spring, told through the lives of individuals
In 2011, Egyptians of all sects, ages and social classes shook off millennia of autocracy, then elected a Muslim Brother as president. The 2013 military coup replaced him with a new strongman, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who has cracked down on any dissent or opposition with a degree of ferocity Mubarak never dared. New York Times
correspondent David D. Kirkpatrick arrived in Egypt with his family less than six months before the uprising first broke out in 2011. As revolution and violence engulfed the country, he received an unexpected and immersive education in the Arab world.
In this candid narrative, Kirkpatrick lives through Cairo’s hopeful days and crushing disappointments alongside the diverse population of his new city: the liberal yuppies who first gathered in Tahrir Square; the persecuted Coptic Christians standing guard around Muslims at prayer during the protests; and the women of a grassroots feminism
movement that tried to seize its moment. Juxtaposing his on-the-ground experience in Cairo with new reporting about conflicts over Egypt in Washington and London, Kirkpatrick traces how authoritarianism was allowed to reclaim Egypt after thirty months of turmoil.
Into the Hands of the Soldiers is a heartbreaking story with a simple message: the failings of decades of autocratic rule are the reason for the chaos we see today across the Arab world. Understanding the story of what happened in those years can help readers make sense of everything taking place across the region today – from the terrorist attacks in North Sinai to the bedlam in Syria and Libya.
- Presents a uniquely human take on the conflict, from the highest echelons of power in the West and in Cairo to the reactions of men and women on the streets
- Will draw on extensive interviews with John Kerry, Ben Rhodes and Leon Pannetta and include a significant scoop on the role the British Ambassador played in the unfolding of the coup against Mubarak
- For readers of The Unwomanly Face of War by Svetlana Alexievich, Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny, Philippe Sands’s East West Street
Reviews
“This will be the must read on the destruction of Egypt’s revolution and democratic moment” – Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director of Human Rights Watch
“With this sweeping, passionate, street-level chronicle of Egypt’s years of hopeful popular uprising and crushing betrayal by the entrenched forces of corruption and violence, and by Washington’s cynical complicity, David D. Kirkpatrick gives us an essential work of reportage for our time” – Philip Gourevitch, author of ‘We Wish to
Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families’
Author Biography
David D. Kirkpatrick is an international correspondent based in London for the New York Times. From 2011 through 2015 he was the Cairo bureau chief. He has also been a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and a contributing editor for New York magazine. Into the Hands of the Soldiers is his first book.