Places and Names: On War, Revolution, and Returning

From a decorated marine war veteran and National Book Award finalist, an astonishing reckoning with the nature of combat and the human cost of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. In this extraordinary memoir, Elliot Ackerman weaves his own vivid and powerful stories of combat into the latticework of a larger reflection on contemporary geopolitics and the human extremes of bravery and terror. Culminating in the events of the Second Battle of Fallujah, where Ackerman's actions saw him awarded the Silver Star, Places and Names stands among our greatest books about modern war. It is at once an intensely personal story about the terrible lure of combat and a brilliant meditation on the past two decades of conflict for America, the region, and the world.