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A review by shirleyyoujest
American War by Omar El Akkad
5.0
The year is 2075. Global warming has caused sea levels to rise and overtake coastal cities, resulting in a great migration to the Midwest and the capitol relocating to Columbus. A federal ban on fossil fuels drives the South to secede and America is once again embroiled in Civil War.
This is the world Sarat Chestnut grows up in and over time, it molds her into a weapon, an insurrectionist, a terrorist.
I read this during a week in which a white supremacist rally protesting the removal of a statue of a Civil War general turned deadly. The old wounds of that war remain and the Southern cause seems to still to burn for many in this country.
Much like "The Handmaid's Tale" felt all too eerily possible in our current society, "American War" too feels like a harbinger of things to come.
This passage really struck me:
"...if we go along with this, if we nod and smile while they parade some fantasy about this being a noble disagreement between equals, and not a bloody fight over their stubborn commitment to a ruinous fuel, the war will never really be over.
But in the end Columbus went along with it, and even today, all these years later, we live with the consequences. They didn't understand, they just didn't understand. You fight the war with guns, you fight the peace with stories."
What stories are we telling ourselves about our bloody past?
This is the world Sarat Chestnut grows up in and over time, it molds her into a weapon, an insurrectionist, a terrorist.
I read this during a week in which a white supremacist rally protesting the removal of a statue of a Civil War general turned deadly. The old wounds of that war remain and the Southern cause seems to still to burn for many in this country.
Much like "The Handmaid's Tale" felt all too eerily possible in our current society, "American War" too feels like a harbinger of things to come.
This passage really struck me:
"...if we go along with this, if we nod and smile while they parade some fantasy about this being a noble disagreement between equals, and not a bloody fight over their stubborn commitment to a ruinous fuel, the war will never really be over.
But in the end Columbus went along with it, and even today, all these years later, we live with the consequences. They didn't understand, they just didn't understand. You fight the war with guns, you fight the peace with stories."
What stories are we telling ourselves about our bloody past?