The changing of the guard - Simon Akam

A TLS and a Prospect Book of the Year

A revelatory, explosive new analysis of the military today.

Over the first two decades of the twenty-first century the British Army fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, at considerable financial and human cost. Yet neither war achieved its objectives. Award-winning journalist Simon Akam questions why, and provides challenging but necessary answers. Composed from assiduous documentary research, field reportage, and hundreds of interviews, this book is a strikingly rich, nuanced portrait of one of our pivotal national institutions in a time of great stress.

This is as much a book about Britain, and about the politics of failure, as it is about the military.