What Wars Leave Behind

The Faceless and the Forgotten

By: J. Malcolm Garcia

Narrated by: Marlin May

In What Wars Leave Behind, J. Malcolm Garcia reveals the people and pain behind the statistics. He writes about impoverished families scraping by in Cairo’s city of the dead, ordinary Syrians pretending all is well as shells explode around them, and others caught in conflicts that rage long after the cameramen have packed up and gone away.

Garcia describes his travels in some of the world’s hotspots in Central Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. In a series of personal travel essays that comes across like short stories, he exposes the endless messiness of war and the failings of good intentions, and he traces their impact on the lives of natives in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt, Kosovo, Chad, and Syria. He discovers amazing resilience among people who must struggle just to survive each day.

Garcia gives listeners the sort of gritty detail learned from immersing himself in other cultures. He eats the food, drinks the tea, and endures the oppressive heat. These are the stories of how a middle-class guy from the Midwest with a social work degree learned to experience and embrace the cultures of third world countries in conflict—and lived to tell the tale.

The book is published by University of Missouri Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

"There's a writer named J. Malcolm Garcia who continually astounds me with his energy and empathy. He writes powerful and lyrical nonfiction...." (Dave Eggers, author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius)

“Garcia is an exceptionally powerful voice on behalf of the people about whom he writes.” (Dale Maharidge, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist)

"Highly engaging...is best as inspiration and exemplar for the advanced student of the writer’s craft." (Journalism and Mass Communication Educator)

©2014 J. Malcolm Garcia (P)2023 Redwood Audiobooks

A Harrowing but Important Story

I really enjoyed this book. J. Malcom Garcia has a way of bringing the reporter’s perspective into view and shows us a side of war that isn’t often represented. At times uplifting and other times quite sad, this book runs the gamut of the emotional spectrum from darkness to hope.

Marlin May does an excellent job in his narration of this book. He seamlessly nails the pronunciation of names and places in Afghanistan; no small feat considering the difficulty some pose. May makes the already interesting material even more interesting with his flawless performance. I’ve listened to other books he’s narrated and have found him consistent in his professionalism and confidence in his ability to nail any subject.

I highly recommend this non-fiction book.