During the four and a half years that America has fought in Iraq, many television stations, newspapers and authors have documented the deaths of thousands of U.S. soldiers, the capture and execution of Saddam Hussein, and the intense political divide in American attitudes toward the war.

Less documented are the lives of those Iraqis who are not directly involved in the politics or violence, but whose futures and families have been destroyed nonetheless. Far less documented are the lives of middle-class, educated, young people.

Ian Klaus’ premise in “Elvis is Titanic: Classroom Tales from the Other Iraq” (Knopf, $24) is ambitious: to tell the stories of university students preparing to be teachers in Kurdistan. Klaus, a 28-year-old former Rhodes Scholar (who dated Chelsea Clinton while at Oxford), taught a semester in Arbil in northern Iraq in 2005.

His stated purpose in the introduction is both promising and alluring: “These tales are not intended as either analysis or objective reportage. They are merely stories of love lost and souls on hold.”

Klaus does provide a vivid and intelligent portrait of Kurdistan, moving seamlessly from scenes in the classroom, to an overview of the region’s history, or speculations on the future economic and career prospects of his students. His description of the impact Hussein and current Islamic extremists have had on the nation’s universities and mind-set is particularly illuminating.

Klaus, however, does not linger long enough on any particular moment, topic or person to bring to life the students whose stories he promises to relate. In a chapter describing a class he led on Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea,” Klaus spends pages summarizing its plot and the major bodies of criticism on Hemingway. He ruminates that the notes of three readers in the university’s copy of the book coincide with each of the three major critical theories. But he spends less time on the scene in the classroom, giving voice to the students, or to their professor.

At several points in the book, I found myself impressed by Klaus’ extensive knowledge of history, literature and political science. But I was equally frustrated by his inability to stop analyzing, interpreting and projecting his own theories – however well-intended and accurate – on classroom interactions.

In many ways, Klaus’ book called to mind Peter Hessler’s “River Town.” Hessler created a nuanced portrait of not only place and politics but also individual people he came to know during the two years he taught education students in China. Granted, he spent two years in Fuling, as opposed to Klaus’ few months in Arbil. But Hessler also had a willingness to admit his cultural mistakes and a narrative gift for storytelling that brought his students to life for the reader.

At the end of his book, Klaus writes: “The rational mind generalizes from particulars. … Only when we know individual people and places do we escape this need for generalization.”

I was happy that Klaus believes he knows the people of Arbil well enough to “escape this need.” But by the end of “Elvis is Titanic,” I wished I knew a little less of him – and a little more of his students.