In 2010, David D. Kirkpatrick took up his post in Cairo as the New York Times Middle East Correspondent. Egypt, like its Arab neighbours, was stagnant, an implacable autocracy. Kirkpatrick's experience of the subsequent four years - among the jubilant throngs at Tahrir Square in 2011, beside Mohammed Morsi in the Presidential palace, trapped in Rabaa as Sisi's army opened fire - overturned all his assumptions. Standing alongside Egyptians of all stations, Kirkpatrick witnessed a region struggling to rewrite history in the face of the indifference of outside powers. Much made him hopeful, but the coup that brought Sisi to power has ushered in a cycle of violence that threatens to snuff out any embers of change. Bless the Hands of the Soldiers is a personal chronicle of these years and a kaleidoscopic portrait of a country in transition.