Into the Hands of the Soldiers

A poignant, deeply human portrait of Egypt during the Arab Spring, told through the lives of individualsA FINANCIAL TIMES AND AN ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEAR'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'Sweeping, passionate ... 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 FamiliesIn 2011, Egyptians of all sects, ages and social classes shook off millennia of autocracy, then elected a Muslim Brother as president. 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 lived through Cairo's hopes and disappointments alongside the diverse population of his new city. 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 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.

Kirkpatrick watched a historic popular uprising unfold. In this book, he brings the story to vivid life through the eyes of both the poor and the powerful, Both astute and insightful, and often as comical as it is tragic, Sweeping, passionate ... An essential work of reportage for our time, This will be the must read on the destruction of Egypt's revolution and democratic moment, A twenty-first-century successor to William L. Shirer's Berlin Diary: a first-rate reporter's riveting eyewitness account of the unfolding of a world-historical tragedy. Kirkpatrick has an uncanny ability to lend a sense of real-time suspense to events in the recent past, and to get to the truth of a dauntingly elusive story

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.