None of Us Were Like This Before: American Soldiers and Torture Hardcover - 2010

“Basing his work on extensive interviews, [Phillips] details how ordinary American troops participated in the torture of enemy soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“A masterwork of narrative nonfiction.”—Chris Lombardi, Guernica

“Phillips shows that the recourse to blaming a ‘few bad apples’ should be recognised as a disgraceful, face-saving fiction.”—David Simpson, London Review of Books

“A tour de force of investigative journalism.”—Eamonn McCann, Belfast Telegraph

“This shattering book is a journey into the heart of American darkness. What Joshua Phillips makes shockingly clear is that the misbehavior of some of our best soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan came about because of a failure of military leadership and because political leaders lacked the courage to admit the word ‘torture.’”—Richard Rodriguez, author of Brown: The Last Discovery of America

“Those who authorized torture and defend it don’t want to talk about this. They took honorable, patriotic young soldiers and convinced them to sacrifice the very principles that they had signed up to defend. That paradox is what Phillips investigates and brings to light. And he does it with the utmost respect for the soldiers.”—Huffington Post

“Phillips’ book remains the first and best heartbreaking tale not only of the abuses taking place within our military prisons, but also the negative, long term and in many cases fatal psychological affects it is having on both interrogating soldiers and interrogated enemy prisoners of war ... [An] outstanding book [and] a necessary read for all.”—Kristina Brown and Paul Sullivan, Veterans for Common Sense

“None of Us Were Like This Before is a model of conscientious reporting on a volatile subject—the torture of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers. His ethical and compassionate approach is an act of citizenship.”—Barry Lopez, author of Arctic Dreams and Crossing Open Ground

“There are many things in this book that are fascinating and generally unknown. One is that these soldiers were afraid to report what they had seen and done ... but without reporting it they couldn’t receive any medical help for their trauma.”—Darius Rejali, author of Torture and Democracy

“None of Us Were Like This Before is a serious, comprehensive effort to examine how torture and abuse, once embarked upon, damage the torturer and abuser as well as the tortured and abused.”—Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell

“This is an important book showing the damage abuse does to the torturers as well as to their victims.”—Oliver Bullough, Independent

“The causes and consequences of systematic abuse and torture are all explored by Joshua Phillips through a careful but searing narrative.”—Dominic Alexander, Counterfire

“A fascinating yet distressing account of how the use of torture and abusive techniques on prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan affected the lives of American soldiers who found themselves caught up in it. Far from neglecting the suffering of the victims, Phillips, through meticulous research, also brings home the full horror of the war crimes inflicted upon the citizens of the occupied nations.”—Craig Hawes, Gulf News

“Joshua Phillips’ book shows that America’s leaders were wrong.”—National

Joshua E. S. Phillips is based in New York City and has reported from Asia and the Middle East. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, Newsweek, Salon, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, among other publications. His radio features have been broadcast on NPR and the BBC. In 2009, Phillips received the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award and the Newspaper Guild's Heywood Broun Award of Substantial Distinction for his American Radio Works documentary What Killed Sergeant Gray.