In October 2023, as Israel's bombardment of Gaza intensified, journalist and novelist Omar El Akkad wrote the sentence that would become the title of this book.

Drawing on his experiences reporting from Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, Ferguson and elsewhere, El Akkad traces his growing disillusionment with the institutions and ideals he once believed distinguished liberal democracies. What followed was an examination of Western political morality, the manufacture of public consent, and the distance between professed humanitarian values and the violence carried out in their name. Part memoir, part political indictment, the book considers how atrocities are justified, how particular lives become expendable, and how historical violence is eventually absorbed into narratives of collective innocence.

Edition / Condition: Text Publishing, Australian paperback edition, 2025. Good to very good condition, with light visible handling wear.