Not All Lions Could Be Tamed

Foreword by General David H. Petraeus

‘The result is a remarkable record. It is vivid, opinionated, funny, uncomfortable at times, and often very wise. It captures both the occasional absurdities and also the deadly seriousness of international intervention.’
General David H. Petraeus

Both as a soldier and a civilian, James Ellery has often found himself playing a pivotal role in some of the world’s most dangerous and controversial countries.

Not All Lions Could be Tamed is a record of Ellery’s personal despatches to friends from two such areas – firstly in a shattered post-Saddam Hussein Iraq and then in a Southern Sudan struggling for self-autonomy. His writing is engaging, insightful and immensely readable.

Not All Lions Could be Tamed is an extraordinary record of unusual times in unusual places and is a more than fitting sequel to Ellery’s first book The Day They Ate The Zoo.

About the Author

James Ellery’s military training started at Mons Officer Cadet School followed by a commission into The Life Guards. This was good preparation for his first deployment in Sharjah. Thereafter, tours in Northern Ireland – and back to the desert for secondment to the new Sultan of Oman’s army. Command and staff appointments followed in the former Yugoslavia, West Germany, The Democratic Republic of Congo (for which he was appointed a CBE), and Sierra Leone.

The jewel in the crown for all Guardsmen is leadership of his regiment. Ellery had the privilege to command The Life Guards in the Airborne Brigade and then on to BAOR as a Challenger tank regiment.

In 2003, he applied for a Foreign Office posting in Iraq. After a senior appointment in the Coalition Provisional Authority, he took on the fast-moving Directorate of Infrastructure Security which eventually broke the back of the insurgents’ attempts to frustrate the export of oil and the delivery of electricity. This was followed by a further posting to the United Nations Mission in Sudan in 2005. James Ellery lives in London.