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American War (novel)

American War
Author Omar El Akkad
Country United States of America
Language English
Genre Fiction, science-fiction
Publisher Alfred A. Knopf
Publication date
4 April 2017
Media type Print (Softcover)
ISBN

American War is the first novel by Canadian-Egyptian journalist Omar El Akkad. It is set in a near-future United States of America ravaged by climate change in which a second Civil War has broken out over the use of fossil fuels. The story is told by Benjamin Chestnut about his aunt Sarat, and is told through narrative chapters interspersed with fictional primary documents collected by the narrator.

In 2074, after the passage of a bill that bans the use of fossil fuels anywhere in the United States of America, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Texas secede from the Union, beginning a civil war. South Carolina is quickly incapacitated by a virus ('the Slow') that makes its inhabitants lethargic, and Texas invaded and occupied by Mexico, while the remaining states ('the Mag', an acronym of their names) continue to fight.

Sarat Chestnut, six years old when the war breaks out, lives with her family on the climate change-ravaged coast of Louisiana. Decades later, her nephew, a historian at the end of his life in New Anchorage, traces the family's story as they flee into the Mag to escape the advancing war.

Much of the novel is set in the "Free Southern State" which is originally made up of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Texas. The United States is split between the Southern State and the remaining northern and western states; near the outset of the war, Mexico annexed or occupied large portions of California, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada and Texas. Other secessionist movements are mentioned: Northern California, Oregon, Washington, and parts of Canada are in talks to form Cascadia.

The rest of the world has also seen geopolitical change. After multiple failed revolutions the states of Northern Africa and portions of the Arab world have united as the Bouazizi Empire, with their capital in Cairo. China and the Bouazizi nations have emerged as the world's dominant economies and the European migrant crisis has reversed, with refugees from collapsed European nations fleeing across the Mediterranean to North Africa. Russia is said to have undertaken a period of aggressive expansion, and has been renamed the Russian Union.


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