Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The Prisoner in His Palace: Saddam Hussein, His American Guards, and What History Leaves Unsaid
    Unavailable
    The Prisoner in His Palace: Saddam Hussein, His American Guards, and What History Leaves Unsaid
    Unavailable
    The Prisoner in His Palace: Saddam Hussein, His American Guards, and What History Leaves Unsaid
    Ebook325 pages5 hours

    The Prisoner in His Palace: Saddam Hussein, His American Guards, and What History Leaves Unsaid

    By Will Bardenwerper

    3.5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this ebook

    The Prisoner in His Palace is an evocative and thought-provoking account of how the lives of twelve young American soldiers deployed to Iraq are upended when they’re asked to guard the most ‘high-value detainee’ of all, the notorious dictator Saddam Hussein.
      What the self-dubbed ‘Super Twelve’ experience in the autumn of 2006 is cognitive dissonance at its most extreme. Expecting to engage with the enemy ‘outside the wire’, they’re suddenly tasked with guarding and protecting a notorious dictator until he can be hanged.
      Watching over Saddam in a former palace the soldiers dub ‘The Rock’ and regularly transporting their prisoner to his raucous trial, they gradually begin to question some of their firmest beliefs. Rather than the snarling beast they expect, Saddam proves confoundingly complex – voluble, charming and given to surprising displays of affection. Perhaps most shockingly, in his Spartan stoicism and the courage he shows in facing death he eventually becomes a role model.
      Employing a timeline that switches between present and past, The Prisoner in His Palace contrasts the man entrusted to the Super Twelve’s care – a grandfatherly figure who proves ‘good company’ – with a younger version of Saddam who is unspeakably ruthless, views murder and torture as legitimate tools and constantly keeps those around him in a blind panic.
      The magic of this book is that Bardenwerper keeps us on edge even though we know how it will end. We immediately sense that the Super Twelve will be forever changed by their experience, and we wonder if we ourselves will. In this artfully constructed narrative, Saddam, the ‘man without a conscience’, manages to get everyone around him to examine theirs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster UK
    Release dateJun 29, 2017
    ISBN9781471153853
    Unavailable
    The Prisoner in His Palace: Saddam Hussein, His American Guards, and What History Leaves Unsaid
    Author

    Will Bardenwerper

    Will Bardenwerper has contributed to The New York Times and The Washington Post. He served as an Airborne Ranger-qualified infantry officer in Iraq and was awarded a Combat Infantryman’s Badge and Bronze Star. In 2010, he joined the Pentagon as a Presidential Management Fellow, where he spent the next four years. He has an MA in international public policy from The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and a BA in English from Princeton. The Prisoner in His Palace is his first book.

    Related to The Prisoner in His Palace

    Related ebooks

    Wars & Military For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Big Gamble

      Apr 9, 2022

      The Big Gamble
      12 min read

    • Article

      How Menon's Downfall Began

      Nov 29, 2019

      Vengalil Krishnan Krishna Menon is best remembered today as the Defence Minister who lost the 1962 India-China war. But in the course of his long and varied career as a lawyer, an expat freedom-fighter, an ambassador and a minister; Menon's complex r

      11 min read

    • Article

      Heroin, The Deadly New High

      Oct 9, 2021

      Heroin, The Deadly New High
      9 min read

    • Article

      Occupation Hazards

      Aug 9, 2020

      Occupation Hazards
      20 min read

    • Article

      Dial India For It

      Nov 25, 2021

      Infosys Chief Operating Officer U.B. Pravin Rao is retiring on a baffled note, it seems. “This is a very unusual phenomenon… [I have been] in the industry for over 35 years, I cannot yet think of a time when we have seen this kind of thing,” he said

      6 min read

    • Article

      Class Apart

      Oct 26, 2022

      Class Apart
      24 min read

    • Article

      History

      Sep 21, 2022

      History
      14 min read

    • Article

      Biography & memoir

      Jun 29, 2022

      Biography & memoir
      13 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Bill Morris

      Dec 15, 2019

      I grew suspicious Isenberg was writing a cleverly coded takedown of Trump, but I realized that was unlikely because the book was published five months before the 2016 election. The post A Year in Reading: Bill Morris appeared first on The Millions.

      2 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Jul 18, 2022

      Books
      6 min read

    • Article

      Must See, Must Read

      Jul 24, 2018

      Must See, Must Read
      11 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Ed Simon

      Dec 5, 2021

      Each of these books taxonomizes the passing of anything that even remotely looked like it could be described naively as the "American Dream." The post A Year in Reading: Ed Simon appeared first on The Millions.

      19 min read

    • Article

      History

      Sep 22, 2021

      History
      14 min read

    • Article

      Tired of the Same Trump-Era ‘Must-Reads’? Read This Instead

      Jan 29, 2019

      We need brighter and more idealistic visions of reading. Concentrate, we should tell ourselves, and thereby feel a little freedom. The post Tired of the Same Trump-Era ‘Must-Reads’? Read This Instead appeared first on The Millions.

      8 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Prisoner in His Palace

    3.5/5

    11 ratings2 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      If ever a book proves that there is not only more to a story than we know, but also that the complexity of human being is unparalleled, this is the book. The Super twelve, the twelve soldiers, from all different backgrounds, who guarded Saddam Hussein up to and through his trial and their experiences doing so are told in a clear and concise manner. We learn some of their backgrounds but much of the book is about their daily interactions with the former ruler of Iraq. Not at all what I nor they expected.A monster to some of his people, a hero to others, he held on to Iraq for 3 1/2 decades, through numerous plots to unseat him and various plots of assassination, he had many reasons to be paranoid. Considered a monster by most of the world, this man had a different side that was presented to the soldiers. Maybe because at that point he didn't have much to lose. Technically his trial was a farce, and his sentence a foregone conclusion. Maybe he wasn't all he was made out to be, though of course many of his actions were abhorrent, maybe they had to be for him to keep not only his position but any kind of peace in this waring nation of tribes. Certainly isn't more peaceful without him, more Iraquies are killed now every day than before. This book makes one think , so many questions, so few answers. He may have lived as a monster but he died as a man. ARC from publisher.
    • 5/5
      He was a true leader. Some people thought he was a monster some people loved his behaviour ❤️❤️