Timothy Andrews Sayle is Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Toronto. Jeffrey A. Engel is Director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University. Hal Brands is the Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of What Good is Grand Strategy? William Inboden is Executive Director and William Powers, Jr., Chair of the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas at Austin.
This is a fascinating contribution to the history of the war. * Foreign Affairs * An expertly researched and written oral and narrative history, The Last Card examines the excruciatingly complex process of American decision making in the run-up to the 2007 surge against al Qaeda in Iraq... This precious narrative history shows the complexities of war planning and is a most welcome addition to modern American war studies, though it is best intended for advanced readers. * Choice * It is essential to learn the right lessons from the Iraq War, and The Last Card is an important first step in what one hopes will be a much longer journey of discovery. * Survival * The Last Card is an excellent resource for scholars. It provides important and authoritative insights into one of the seminal events in American history. * The US Army War College Quarterly * The Last Card makes an invaluable contribution to the emerging literature on the subsequent course of the war, bringing scholars and policy-makers together to explore how and why the surge came to be. * International Affairs * The Last Card is unique in that the book looks to make primary and secondary contributions simultaneously. Without a doubt, the work adds to narratives regarding the Bush administration and its handling of the war in Iraq. It provides insight on a thematically complex subject, offering immediate value to scholars in several fields. * Presidential Studies Quarterly *