"In the Wake of the Surge" is a gripping first-person narrative that tells the story of the Kurds, the Arabs, and the Americans in Iraq during one of the most violent and wrenching periods in that country's history. Award-winning foreign correspondent Michael J. Totten visited Iraq seven times between 2005 and 2009, first as a "unilateral" freelance journalist without a gun in the Kurdish autonomous region, and then as an embedded reporter with the U.S. Army and Marine Corps in Baghdad, Sadr City, Ramadi, and Fallujah.

He was there at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of General...

Prize-winning author Michael J. Totten returns with a masterpiece of travel writing and history in this journey through thirteen nations-all but two formerly communist-just beyond the edge of the West where few casual travelers venture. His work as an independent foreign correspondent takes him deep into the field beyond the sensational headlines, from his hilariously miserable road trip through the Middle East with his best friend to Iraq, and around Eastern Europe to the Wild West of Albania; from the killing fields in Bosnia and Kosovo to a Romania haunted by the ghosts of its communist...