For eight years Camp Bastion was the power-house of the British Army’s military operations in Afghanistan. Britain’s biggest overseas base since World War Two has now closed down for good. Channel 4 was given exclusive access to the men and women whose job it was to pack up this giant jigsaw puzzle.

A town the size of Reading with a massive infrastructure – airport, hospital, fast food restaurants – is dismantled bolt by bolt and sent back to the UK. What is left is handed over to the Afghans. But with defences and manpower depleting daily, in the face of a constant threat from the Taliban, it is a dangerous race against time to close this city in the sand.

Directed by Richard Parry produced by Leslie Knott
Duration: 47′
Year: 2014

In Generation’s End: A Personal Memoir of American Power after 9/11, Scott Malcomson recalls his work at the New York Times as foreign-affairs op-ed editor during  9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan, then as an advisor to the UN’s Sergio Vieira de Mello until his death in the bombing of the UN headquarters in August 2003

This was the period when America’s "baby-boomer" generation came out from under the shadow of the greatest generation and faced its decisive test on the world stage. As George Packer writes in his foreword: “These two years contain all the decisions that would set in motion the larger era.”

Malcomson, currently foreign editor of the New York Times Magazine, will be joined on stage at this exclusive event at the Frontline Club by New York Times’ London bureau chief, John F. Burns, a two-time Pulitzer prize winner. Articles commissioned by Malcomson have won numerous awards, including a Pulitzer Prize and a National Magazine Award.

To reserve a seat kindly rsvp to Karyn Caplan at karyn@iwpr.net.