Filmmaker Errol Morris offers his perspective on the world and his powerful belief in the necessity of truth.  In 1972, philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn threw an ashtray at Errol Morris. This book is the result.   At the time, Morris was a graduate student. Now we know him as one of the most celebrated and restlessly probing filmmakers of our time, the creator of such classics of documentary investigation as The Thin Blue Line and The Fog of War. Kuhn, meanwhile, was—and, posthumously, remains—a star in his field, the author of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, a landmark book that has sold well over a million copies and introduced the concept of “paradigm shifts� to the larger culture. And Morris thought the idea was bunk.   The Ashtray tells why—and in doing so, it makes a powerful case for Morris’s way of viewing the world, and the centrality to that view of a fundamental conception of the necessity of truth. “For me,� Morris writes, “truth is about the relationship between language and the world: a correspondence idea of truth.� He has no patience for philosophical systems that aim for internal coherence and disdain the world itself. Morris is after bigger game: he wants to establish as clearly as possible what we know and can say about the world, reality, history, our actions and interactions. It’s the fundamental desire that animates his filmmaking, whether he’s probing Robert McNamara about Vietnam or the oddball owner of a pet cemetery. Truth may be slippery, but that doesn’t mean we have to grease its path of escape through philosophical evasions. Rather, Morris argues powerfully, it is our duty to do everything we can to establish and support it.   In a time when truth feels ever more embattled, under siege from political lies and virtual lives alike, The Ashtray is a bracing reminder of its value, delivered by a figure who has, over decades, uniquely earned our trust through his commitment to truth. No Morris fan should miss it.

The first full reckoning of what actually happened at Abu Ghraib prison-"one of the most devastating of the many books on Iraq" ("The New York Times Book Review")
A relentlesly surprising and perceptive account of the front lines of the war on terror, "Standard Operating Procedure" is a war story that takes its place among the classics. Acclaimed author Philip Gourevitch presents the story behind a defining moment in the war, and a defining moment in our understanding of ourselves- the infamous Abu Ghraib photographs of prisoner abuse. Drawing on Academy Award-winning filmmaker Errol Morris's astonishing interviews with the Americans who took and appeared in the pictures, "Standard Operating Procedure" is an utterly original book that stands to endure as essential reading long after the current war in Iraq passes from the headlines.

"Standard Operating Procedure" is the story of the infamous Abu Ghraib photographs of prisoner abuse, as seen through the eyes and told through the voices of the soldiers who took them and appeared in them. It is the story of how those soldiers were at once the instruments and victims of a great injustice.

Drawing on more than two hundred hours of Errol Morris' startlingly frank and intimate interviews with the soldier-photographers who gave us what have become iconic images of the Iraq War.

'A compelling meditation on a descent into cruelty. ' " Daily Telegraph"

'An extraordinary book . . . Although Gourevitch lets the soldiers speak for themselves, his few analytical forays are invaluable.' " Guardian"

Standard Operating Procedure is an utterly original collaboration by the writer Philip Gourevitch (We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families) and the film-maker Errol Morris (The Thin Blue Line, The Fog of War). They have produced the first full reckoning of what actually happened at Abu Ghraib. Standard Operating Procedure reveals the stories of the American soldiers who took and appeared in the haunting digital snapshots from Abu Ghraib prison that shocked the world - and simultaneously illuminates and alters forever our understanding of those images and the events they depict. Drawing on more than two hundred hours of Errol Morris's startlingly frank and intimate interviews with Americans who served at Abu Ghraib and with some of their Iraqi prisoners, as well as on his own research, Philip Gourevitch has written a relentlessly surprising account of Iraq's occupation from the inside-out - rendering vivid portraits of guards and prisoners ensnared in an appalling breakdown of command authority and moral order. Gourevitch and Morris have crafted a nonfiction morality play that stands to endure as essential reading long after the current war in Iraq passes from the headlines. By taking us deep into the voices and characters of the men and women who lived the horror of Abu Ghraib, the authors force us, whatever our politics, to re-examine the pat explanations in which we have been offered - or sought - refuge, and to see afresh this watershed episode. Instead of a 'few bad apples', we are confronted with disturbingly ordinary young American men and women who have been dropped into something out of Dante's Inferno. This is a book that makes you think, and makes you see - an essential contribution from two of our finest nonfiction artists working at the peak of their powers.