Recommendation by Jonathan Power
War is a force that gives us meaning
By Chris Hedges
Public Affairs, Oxford, 2002
This is the Kon Tiki of anti-war polemics. Gripping, thrilling, learned and impossible to put down, Chris Hedges, a star New York Times war correspondent, describes war, killing and the sadism and seduction that goes with it in the most extraordinary flowing prose, carrying the reader through the waves and storms of often complex argument to show that there must be another way at looking at irresolvable disputes, the nationalistic need for drama , and the all too human fear of the other side. In his time in the field Hedges too has felt the lure and addiction of war. Here he throws it off, challenging every presumption in its favour, every excuse to pursue it yet, rather amazingly, remaining in the end unconvinced of the need to be a pacifist, just a hater of the horror, cruelty,ruthlessness and brutal narrow mindedness of unnecessary war.