Veteran Activism and the Global War on Terror

<p><b><i>Veteran Activism and the Global War on Terror</i> is the first study of the literature of dissent that has emerged from the veterans of the global War on Terror.</b><br><br>Spencer Ackerman''s <i>Reign of Terror </i>stated that “The most impactful activism against the War on Terror came from within the Security State itself . . . low ranking soldiers and intelligence contractors whose exposure to the war prompted them to expose it to the world.” <i>Veteran Activism and the Global War on Terror</i> examines this subculture of veterans whose stories have dramatically shifted the conversation about literature and activism. Author M. C. Armstrong introduces and explores America’s post-9/11 soldier-writers, a community that challenges pivotal contemporary assumptions about allegiance, democracy, geography, solidarity, and national identity. <br><br>Chapters are organized around a triad of core concepts–parrhesia, cosmopolitanism, and dissensus–and discuss authors including Elliot Ackerman, Kristin Beck, Joseph Hickman, Phil Klay, Kevin Powers, and Edward Snowden. Armstrong argues that this scene represents a literary movement and perhaps the most significant literary community since the Beat Generation, and <i>Veteran Activism and the Global War on Terror</i> reads the work of these writers as the loci of a “dissenting” overhaul of the official narratives and rhetorical maps that chart the United States’ Global War on Terror.</p>