Penguin, Toronto, 2006, 1^st pr. thus.  ISBN 0-14-305653-0 / 978-0-14-305653-9.  Trade soft cover, 396 pages plus Acknowledgments.  New, unread copy; black & white photo plate section.  ‘In August 2003, at the age of thirty, Rory Stewart took a taxi from Jordan to Baghdad.  A Farsi-speaking British diplomat, he was soon appointed deputy governor of Amarah and then Nasiriyah, provinces in the remote, impoverished marsh regions of southern Iraq.  He spent the next eleven months negotiating hostage releases, holding elections, and splicing together some semblance of an infrastructure for a population of millions teetering on the brink of civil war.’ (from rear wrap)