Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander’s War in Iraq - Peter R. Mansoor, Yale University Press, 2008, 376 pgs, $28.00.

Before the Surge, and After - Mark Moyar, Wall Street Journal book review

... When Gen. David Petraeus set out to rescue a seemingly hopeless Iraq in February 2007, he brought Col. Mansoor back to Iraq and into his inner circle. Like Gen. Petraeus, Col. Mansoor was a scholar as well as a soldier, having earned a doctorate in military history and written a book about World War II before leading the 1st Brigade Combat Team against Iraq's insurgency.

Thus in "Baghdad at Sunrise," Col. Mansoor displays the knowledge of a soldier alongside the narrative gifts of a true historian, weaving dramatic events together, capturing the thoughts and emotions of street-level fighters, and describing Iraqi society as it tries to emerge from the maelstrom of war.

The war was certainly grim during Col. Mansoor's first tour, in part because the Iraqis were only just learning to fight the insurgency themselves. In April 2004, Col. Mansoor's brigade received orders to escort 200 Iraqi soldiers from Baghdad to Fallujah, where the butchering of four Blackwater contractors had sparked the war's fiercest fighting...

Much more at The Wall Street Journal.