An Associated Press piece written by their Iraq editor, Brian Murphy, was picked up yesterday by the Olympian in Olympia, Washington. It’s a nifty little story about how we came to publish Instructions for American Servicemen in Iraq during World War II.
Publishing is often all about accident and serendipity and Instructions illustrates that in spades. A booklet printed for American soldiers is found sixty-four years later at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University and so brought back into print—the same words, utterly altered by different circumstances.
George Packer also takes note of the book on his blog, Interesting Times, on the New Yorker website.