ampamp34A beautifully wrought book about the relationship between language and war.ampamp34Victoria Chang author ofampamp160Dear MemoryFrom awardwinning poet Chris Santiago a farreaching collection of erasures and original poems examining the long shadow of American militarism and imperialism.Stemming in part from a disturbingly mundane military document of the same name Small Wars Manual is a howto for imperialism that critically dismantles itself with each passing line a pidgin containing elements of animus and insubordination. In its wake the very boundaries of oppression and resistance art and justice and power and truth are exploded.Highly conceptual yet gutwrenching this meticulous and visionary masterpiece of erasure poetry and other forms sinks into the cold mechanics of American warfare in the Philippines and Vietnam to reveal a brutal rhetoric. In more autobiographical sections Chris Santiagos own Filipino immigrant background reveals hardlived experiences where ampamp8220stars can guide either bayonets or refugeesampamp8221 and ampamp8220even small wars waged on the living room floorampamp8221 cause trepidation and harm.This righteous collection redeems the vulnerable from the aggressorsampamp8212empire army their systems and toolsampamp8212and transforms everything in the process.