Devastation And Laughter

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Devastation and Laughter: Satire, Power, and Culture in the Early Soviet State (1920s-1930s)

Author : Annie G?rin
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781487526542
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (265 download)

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Book Synopsis Devastation and Laughter: Satire, Power, and Culture in the Early Soviet State (1920s-1930s) by : Annie G?rin

Download or read book Devastation and Laughter: Satire, Power, and Culture in the Early Soviet State (1920s-1930s) written by Annie G?rin and published by . This book was released on 2018-11-25 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Devastation and Laughter, Annie Gérin explores the use of satire in the visual arts, the circus, theatre, and cinema under Lenin and Stalin. Gérin traces the rise and decline of the genre and argues that the use of satire in official Soviet art and propaganda was neither marginal nor un-theorized. The author sheds light on the theoretical texts written in the 1920s and 1930s by Anatoly Lunacharsky, the Soviet Commissar of Enlightenment, and the impact his writings had on satirists. While the Avant-Garde and Socialist Realism were necessarily forward-looking and utopian, satire afforded artists the means to examine critically past and present subjects, themes, and practice. Devastation and Laughter is the first work to bring Soviet theoretical writings on the use of satire to the attention of scholars outside of Russia. By introducing important bodies of work that have largely been overlooked in the fields of art history, film and theatre history, Annie Gérin provides a nuanced and alternative reading of early Soviet art.

Devastation and Laughter

Author : Annie Gérin
Publisher : University of Toronto Press
ISBN 13 : 1487515332
Total Pages : 282 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (875 download)

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Book Synopsis Devastation and Laughter by : Annie Gérin

Download or read book Devastation and Laughter written by Annie Gérin and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2018-11-23 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Devastation and Laughter, Annie Gérin explores the use of satire in the visual arts, theatre, cinema, and the circus under Lenin and Stalin. Gérin traces the rise and decline of the genre and argues that the use of satire in official Soviet art and propaganda was neither marginal nor untheorized. The author sheds light on the texts written in the 1920s and 1930s by Anatoly Lunacharsky, the Soviet Commissar of Enlightenment, and the impact his writings had on satirists. While the Avant-Garde and Socialist Realism were necessarily forward-looking and utopian, satire afforded artists the means to examine critically past and present subjects, themes, and practice. Devastation and Laughter is the first work to bring Soviet theoretical writings on the use of satire to the attention of scholars outside of Russia. By introducing important bodies of work that have largely been overlooked in the fields of art history and film and theatre history, Annie Gérin provides a nuanced and alternative reading of early Soviet art.

The Cinema of Yakov Protazanov

Author : F. Booth Wilson
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
ISBN 13 : 1978839162
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (788 download)

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Book Synopsis The Cinema of Yakov Protazanov by : F. Booth Wilson

Download or read book The Cinema of Yakov Protazanov written by F. Booth Wilson and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2024-04-12 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Best known for Aelita (1924), the classic science-fiction film of the Soviet silent era, Yakov Protazanov directed over a hundred films in a career spanning three decades. Called "the Russian D.W. Griffith" in the 1910s for his formative role in the first movies in the last years of the Russian Empire, he fled the Civil War and maintained a successful career in Europe before making an unusual decision to return to Russia now under Soviet power. There his films continued their remarkable success with audiences undergoing a bewildering and often brutal revolutionary transformation. Rather than treating him as an indistinct, if capable craftsman, The Cinema of Yakov Protazanov argues that his films are suffused with a unique creative vision that reflects both his mindset as a traditional Russian intellectual and his experience of dislocation and migration after 1917. As he adapted his films to revolutionary culture, they intermingled different voices and reinterpreted his past work from a disavowed era. Offering fresh perspectives of Protazanov’s films, the book will give readers a new appreciation of his career. The book offers a uniquely valuable vantage point from which to explore how cinema reflected a society in transformation and a seminal moment in the development of cinematic art.

Savage Continent

Author : Keith Lowe
Publisher : St. Martin's Press
ISBN 13 : 1250015049
Total Pages : 480 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (5 download)

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Book Synopsis Savage Continent by : Keith Lowe

Download or read book Savage Continent written by Keith Lowe and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2012-07-03 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Second World War might have officially ended in May 1945, but in reality it rumbled on for another ten years... The end of the Second World War in Europe is one of the twentieth century's most iconic moments. It is fondly remembered as a time when cheering crowds filled the streets, danced, drank and made love until the small hours. These images of victory and celebration are so strong in our minds that the period of anarchy and civil war that followed has been forgotten. Across Europe, landscapes had been ravaged, entire cities razed and more than thirty million people had been killed in the war. The institutions that we now take for granted - such as the police, the media, transport, local and national government - were either entirely absent or hopelessly compromised. Crime rates were soaring, economies collapsing, and the European population was hovering on the brink of starvation. In Savage Continent, Keith Lowe describes a continent still racked by violence, where large sections of the population had yet to accept that the war was over. Individuals, communities and sometimes whole nations sought vengeance for the wrongs that had been done to them during the war. Germans and collaborators everywhere were rounded up, tormented and summarily executed. Concentration camps were reopened and filled with new victims who were tortured and starved. Violent anti-Semitism was reborn, sparking murders and new pogroms across Europe. Massacres were an integral part of the chaos and in some places – particularly Greece, Yugoslavia and Poland, as well as parts of Italy and France – they led to brutal civil wars. In some of the greatest acts of ethnic cleansing the world has ever seen, tens of millions were expelled from their ancestral homelands, often with the implicit blessing of the Allied authorities. Savage Continent is the story of post WWII Europe, in all its ugly detail, from the end of the war right up until the establishment of an uneasy stability across Europe towards the end of the 1940s. Based principally on primary sources from a dozen countries, Savage Continent is a frightening and thrilling chronicle of a world gone mad, the standard history of post WWII Europe for years to come.

Tragedy Plus Time

Author : Adam Cayton-Holland
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 150117018X
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (11 download)

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Book Synopsis Tragedy Plus Time by : Adam Cayton-Holland

Download or read book Tragedy Plus Time written by Adam Cayton-Holland and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-08-21 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Inspiring, tragic, and at times heart-rendingly funny.” —People Unsentimental, unexpectedly funny, and incredibly honest, Tragedy Plus Time is a love letter to every family that has ever felt messy, complicated, or (even momentarily) magnificent. Meet the Magnificent Cayton-Hollands, a trio of brilliant, acerbic teenagers from Denver, Colorado, who were going to change the world. Anna, Adam, and Lydia were taught by their father, a civil rights lawyer, and mother, an investigative journalist, to recognize injustice and have their hearts open to the universe—the good, the bad, the heartbreaking (and, inadvertently, the anxiety-inducing and the obsessive-compulsive disorder-fueling). Adam chose to meet life’s tough breaks and cruel realities with stand-up comedy; his older sister, Anna, chose law; while their youngest sister, Lydia, struggled to find her place in the world. Beautiful and whip-smart, Lydia was witty, extremely sensitive, fiercely stubborn, and always somewhat haunted. She and Adam bonded over comedy from a young age, running skits in their basement and obsessing over episodes of The Simpsons. When Adam sunk into a deep depression in college, it was Lydia who was able to reach him and pull him out. But years later as Adam’s career takes off, Lydia’s own depression overtakes her, and, though he tries, Adam can’t return the favor. When she takes her own life, the family is devastated, and Adam throws himself into his stand-up, drinking, and rage. He struggles with disturbing memories of Lydia’s death and turns to EMDR therapy to treat his post-traumatic stress disorder when he realizes there’s a difference between losing and losing it. Adam Cayton-Holland is a tremendously talented writer and comedian, uniquely poised to take readers to the edges of comedy and tragedy, brilliance and madness. Tragedy Plus Time is a revelatory, darkly funny, and poignant tribute to a lost sibling that will have you reaching for the phone to call your brother or sister by the last page.

Entropic Philosophy

Author : Shannon M. Mussett
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 178661247X
Total Pages : 221 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (866 download)

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Book Synopsis Entropic Philosophy by : Shannon M. Mussett

Download or read book Entropic Philosophy written by Shannon M. Mussett and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2022-01-31 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now is a time of tremendous anxiety about the present and future state of the world. As the second law of thermodynamics states, entropy never decreases, time marches relentlessly forward, and closed systems inevitably break down. Entropy serves as a powerful metaphor capturing expressions of growing malaise and decline. Entropic Philosophy: Chaos, Breakdown, and Creation builds on the meaning of entropy from the Greek entropia, signifying “a turning toward” or “transformation.” Developing a philosophy of entropy, this book draws variously from anthropology, psychoanalysis, literature, art, and the history of philosophy. This approach opens pathways for reverence and care that are crucial in preventing fear, existential inertia, and despair.

News from Moscow

Author : Simon Huxtable
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192672193
Total Pages : 266 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (926 download)

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Book Synopsis News from Moscow by : Simon Huxtable

Download or read book News from Moscow written by Simon Huxtable and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-04-14 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: News from Moscow is a social and cultural history of Soviet journalism after World War II. Focusing on the youth newspaper Komsomol'skaia Pravda, the study draws on transcripts of behind-the-scenes editorial meetings to chart the changing professional ethos of the Soviet journalist. Simon Huxtable shows how journalists viewed themselves both as propagandists bringing the Party's ideas to the wider public, but also as reformers who tried to implement new ideas that would help usher the country towards Communism. The volume focuses on both aspects of the journalists' role, from propaganda editorials in praise of Comrade Stalin and articles lauding young heroes' exploits in the Virgin Lands, to revolutionary new initiatives, such as the country's first ever polling institute and clubs promoting the virtues of unfettered public debate. Soviet journalism, argues Huxtable, was riven with an unresolvable tension between innovation and conservativism: the more journalists tried to promote new innovations to perfect Soviet society, the more officials grew anxious about the disruptive consequences of reform. By demonstrating the day-to-day conflicts that characterised the press's activity, and by showing that the production of Soviet propaganda involved much more than redrafting orders from above, News from Moscow offers a new perspective on Soviet propaganda that expands our understanding of the possibilities and limits of reform in a period of rapid change.

Crosshairs

Author : Catherine Hernandez
Publisher : Atria Books
ISBN 13 : 1982146028
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (821 download)

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Book Synopsis Crosshairs by : Catherine Hernandez

Download or read book Crosshairs written by Catherine Hernandez and published by Atria Books. This book was released on 2020-12-08 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of the acclaimed novel Scarborough weaves an unforgettable and timely dystopian tale about a near-future, where a queer Black performer and his allies join forces to rise up when an oppressive regime gathers those deemed “Other” into concentration camps. Set in a terrifyingly familiar near-future, with massive floods leading to rampant homelessness and devastation, a government-sanctioned regime called The Boots seizes on the opportunity to round up communities of color, the disabled, and the LGBTQ+ into labor camps. In the shadows, a new hero emerges. After he loses his livelihood as a drag queen and the love of his life, Kay joins the resistance alongside Bahadur, a transmasculine refugee, and Firuzeh, a headstrong social worker. Guiding them in the use of weapons and close-quarters combat is Beck, a rogue army officer, who helps them plan an uprising at a major televised international event. With her signature “raw yet beautiful, disturbing yet hopeful” (Booklist) prose, Catherine Hernandez creates a vision of the future that is all the more frightening because it is very possible. A cautionary tale filled with fierce and vibrant characters, Crosshairs explores the universal desire to thrive, love, and be loved for being your true self.

The Legacy of Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Laughter

Author : Lydia Amir
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 0429000863
Total Pages : 575 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (29 download)

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Book Synopsis The Legacy of Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Laughter by : Lydia Amir

Download or read book The Legacy of Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Laughter written by Lydia Amir and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-09-30 with total page 575 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates the role of humor in the good life, specifically as discussed by three prominent French intellectuals who were influenced by Nietzsche's thought: Georges Bataille, Gilles Deleuze, and Clément Rosset. Lydia Amir begins by discussing Nietzsche’s reception in France, and she explains why and how he came to be considered a "philosopher of laughter" in the French academe. Each of the subsequent three chapters focuses on the significance of humor and laughter in the good life as advocated by Bataille, Deleuze, and Rosset. These chapters also explore the complex relationship between the comic and the tragic, and of humor and laughter to irony, satire, and ridicule. The Legacy of Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Laughter makes an invaluable contribution to recent interpretive work done on Bataille and Deleuze, and offers further introduction to the relatively understudied Rosset. It illuminates the philosophies of these three thinkers, their connection to Nietzsche, and, overall, the significant role that humor plays in philosophy.

The Wild Laughter

Author : Caoilinn Hughes
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1786077825
Total Pages : 210 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (86 download)

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Book Synopsis The Wild Laughter by : Caoilinn Hughes

Download or read book The Wild Laughter written by Caoilinn Hughes and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-06-18 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A grand feat of comic ingenuity, mischievous and insightful, and full of resonance for the way we live now... So original and vibrant.' Encore Award Judges FINALIST FOR THE AN POST IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR 2020, THE RTÉ RADIO 1 LISTENERS' CHOICE AWARD 2020 & THE DALKEY EMERGING WRITER AWARD 2021 LONGLISTED FOR THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE & THE i COMEDY WOMEN IN PRINT PRIZE, 2021 AN IRISH TIMES, IRISH SUNDAY TIMES, IRISH INDEPENDENT & SUNDAY INDEPENDENT BOOK OF THE YEAR, 2020 It's 2008, and the Celtic Tiger has left devastation in its wake. Brothers Hart and Cormac Black are waking up to a very different Ireland – one that widens the chasm between them and brings their beloved father to his knees. Facing a devastating choice that will put their livelihood, even their lives, on the line, the brothers soon learn that their biggest danger comes when there is nothing to lose. A sharp snapshot of a family and a nation suddenly unmoored, this epic-in-miniature explores cowardice and sacrifice, faith rewarded and abandoned, the stories we tell ourselves and the ones we resist. Hilarious, poignant and utterly fresh, The Wild Laughter cements Caoilinn Hughes' position as one of Ireland's most audacious, nuanced and insightful young writers.

A Hebrew and English Lexicon Without Points

Author : John Parkhurst
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 660 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (4 download)

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Book Synopsis A Hebrew and English Lexicon Without Points by : John Parkhurst

Download or read book A Hebrew and English Lexicon Without Points written by John Parkhurst and published by . This book was released on 1829 with total page 660 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

The State versus the People

Author : Matthew Rendle
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192576860
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (925 download)

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Book Synopsis The State versus the People by : Matthew Rendle

Download or read book The State versus the People written by Matthew Rendle and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-11 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The State versus The People provides the first detailed account of the role of revolutionary justice in the early Soviet state. Law has often been dismissed by historians as either unimportant after the October Revolution amid the violence and chaos of civil war, or, in the absence of written codes and independent judges, little more than another means of violence alongside the secret police (Cheka). This is particularly true of the most revolutionary aspect of the new justice system, revolutionary tribunals—courts inspired by the French Revolution and established to target counter-revolutionary enemies. Yet the evidence put forward in this book paints a more complex picture. The Bolsheviks invested a great deal of effort and scarce resources in building an extensive system of tribunals that spread across the country and operated within the military and the transport network. At their peak, hundreds of tribunals heard hundreds of thousands of cases every year. Not all, though, ended in harsh sentences: some were dismissed through lack of evidence; others given a wide range of sentences; and others still, suspended sentences. Instances of early release and amnesty were also common. This book argues that law played a distinct and multi-faceted role for the Bolsheviks. Tribunals, in particular, stood at the intersection between law and violence, offering various advantages to the Bolsheviks by strengthening state control, providing a more effective means of educating the population about counter-revolution, and enabling a more flexible approach to punishing the state's enemies. All of this challenges traditional understandings of the early Soviet state, adding to our knowledge of the civil war and, ultimately, how the Bolsheviks held on to power.

The Destruction of the Temple

Author : Barry N. Malzberg
Publisher : Gateway
ISBN 13 : 0575102403
Total Pages : 121 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (751 download)

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Book Synopsis The Destruction of the Temple by : Barry N. Malzberg

Download or read book The Destruction of the Temple written by Barry N. Malzberg and published by Gateway. This book was released on 2011-09-29 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The year is 2016, and President Kennedy is being murdered - again and again and again. The director has come to the charred ruins of New York to re-enact a mad dream from the past - the assassination of President Kennedy. As actors, he has the primitive race who inhabit the city. With them and his glamorous, dark haired lover, he rehearses everything - the motorcade, the shots, the panic. But at the last moment it all goes wrong. When the flower-filled limousine rounds the bend, the passenger is not Kennedy - but the Director himself. Shots ring out in a wild explosion of roses.

Laughter Is the Best Weapon

Author : Charles Ritchie
Publisher : Pen & Sword Military
ISBN 13 : 9781399091886
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (918 download)

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Book Synopsis Laughter Is the Best Weapon by : Charles Ritchie

Download or read book Laughter Is the Best Weapon written by Charles Ritchie and published by Pen & Sword Military. This book was released on 2021-06-23 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An army may march on its stomach but it leans on its funny bone." So says Brigadier Charles Ritchie, and he should know. Postings to the Yemen, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, and other far-away trouble spots gave him many opportunities to demonstrate that the ability to laugh - and make others laugh - is an invaluable skill in an officer's kitbag.In Laughter is the Best Weapon - the Remarkable Adventures of an Unconventional Soldier, Charles abandons the popular trend for military heroism and angst-ridden confessions. Instead he leads the reader on a forthright yet light-hearted and self-deprecating journey through his 38 years' service as a Royal Scot. In the process we witness his sometimes significant, but often comedic, participation in a wide range of recent British military operations.If you prefer your military history more entertainingly honest than earnestly intellectual and your soldiers hilariously slapstick rather than heroically stoic, then this is the book for you. Liberally sprinkled with career-limiting cock-ups, bizarre near-death experiences, and the clatter not of gunfire but shameless name-dropping, these delightfully varied anecdotes deliver a hugely entertaining glimpse into the extraordinary life of one of the British Army's most spirited and loveable characters.

Laughter on the 23rd Floor

Author : Neil Simon
Publisher : Concord Theatricals
ISBN 13 : 0573694141
Total Pages : 87 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (736 download)

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Book Synopsis Laughter on the 23rd Floor by : Neil Simon

Download or read book Laughter on the 23rd Floor written by Neil Simon and published by Concord Theatricals. This book was released on 1995 with total page 87 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inspired by the playwright's youthful experience as a staff writer on Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows, with all the attendant comic drama as the harried writing staff frantically scramble to top each other with gags while competing for the attention of star madman "Max Prince."

Figuring Shit Out

Author : Amy Biancolli
Publisher : Behler Publications, LLC
ISBN 13 : 1933016469
Total Pages : 245 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (33 download)

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Book Synopsis Figuring Shit Out by : Amy Biancolli

Download or read book Figuring Shit Out written by Amy Biancolli and published by Behler Publications, LLC. This book was released on 2014-09-29 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Your life isn't over." My dad says this. "I mean, YOUR life isn't over. Beyond the kids. You'll go on living, doing things. This isn't it." I know, I assure him. I have the kids. They need me. They're my life now. "OK," he replies, then grunts—more of a brief hum. He only hums when he thinks I'm full of shit. Shockingly single. Amy Biancolli's life went off script more dramatically than most after her husband of twenty years jumped off the roof of a parking garage. Left with three children, a three-story house, and a pile of knotty psychological complications, Amy realizes the flooding dishwasher, dead car battery, rapidly growing lawn, basement sump pump, and broken doorknob aren't going to fix themselves. She also realizes that "figuring shit out" means accepting the horrors that came her way, rolling with them, slogging through them, helping others through theirs, and working her way through life with love and laughter. Amy Biancolli is an author and journalist whose column appears in the Albany Times Union. Before that, Amy served as film critic for the Houston Chronicle where her reviews, published around the country, won her the 2007 Comment and Criticism Award from the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors Association. Biancolli is the author of House of Holy Fools: A Family Portrait in Six Cracked Parts, which earned her Albany Author of the Year. Amy lives in Albany, New York, with her three children.

Where Youth and Laughter Go

Author : Seth William Bell Folsom
Publisher : Naval Institute Press
ISBN 13 : 1612518729
Total Pages : 259 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (125 download)

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Book Synopsis Where Youth and Laughter Go by : Seth William Bell Folsom

Download or read book Where Youth and Laughter Go written by Seth William Bell Folsom and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Where Youth and Laughter Go completes LtCol Seth Folsom’s recounting of his personal experiences in command over a decade of war. It is the culminating chapter of a trilogy that began with The Highway War: A Marine Company Commander in Iraq in 2006 and continued with In the Gray Area: A Marine Advisor Team at War in 2010. The chronicle of Folsom’s command of 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, “The Cutting Edge,” and his harrowing deployment to Afghanistan’s volatile Sangin District presents a deeper look into the complexities and perils of modern counterinsurgency operations in America’s longest war. Charged with the daunting task of pacifying a region with a long history of violence and instability, Folsom and his Marines struggled daily to wage a dynamic campaign against the shadowy enemy force that held Sangin’s population firmly in its grip. With peace and stability always teetering on the brink of collapse, the Marines of “The Cutting Edge” confronted their own mortality as they conducted endless patrols through Sangin’s minefields while fighting to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan villagers. No other books have been published from the perspective of a Marine infantry battalion commander in Afghanistan. It was Folsom’s job, as the unit commander, to lead his Marines under impossible circumstances. LtCol Folsom made the unusual decision to patrol with his rifle squads every day through Sangin, where his Marines dodged improvised explosive devices and sniper fire from an invisible enemy. As his tour progressed and casualties mounted, he found his objectivity evaporating and the love for his men growing. Where Youth and Laughter Go is more than a blood-and-guts war story, it is a jarring, “boots on the ground”–level examination of the myriad challenges and personal dilemmas that today’s young service members face as the United States approaches its final endgame in Afghanistan.