Publisher Description
As a veteran war correspondent, Chris Hedges has survived ambushes in Central America, imprisonment in Sudan, and a beating by Saudi military police. He has seen children murdered for sport in Gaza and petty thugs elevated into war heroes in the Balkans. Hedges, who is also a former divinity student, has seen war at its worst and knows too well that to those who pass through it, war can be exhilarating and even addictive. “It gives us purpose, meaning, a reason for living.” Drawing on his own experience and on the literature of combat from Homer to Michael Herr, Hedges shows how war seduces not just those on the front lines but entire societies, corrupting politics, destroying culture, and perverting basic human desires. Mixing hard-nosed realism with profound moral and philosophical insight, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning is a work of terrible power and redemptive clarity whose truths have never been more necessary.
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“Everyone should read this book. Its amazing & lays bare the lies that surround the glorification and promotion of war. It shows war for what it is – a messy, ugly, evil that brings out the worst in humanity. Hedges, a war correspondent, intersperses his eyewitness accounts of war with ruminations on the nature of war and what it is that attracts humanity and keeps us in a state of war. His conclusions – that the pursuit of truth is necessary to pierce the lies that surround war and that individual human relationships, most of all love, are all that can keep us from falling into the evils that war brings out – are powerful. This book is sobering, especially given that the US has brought war & destruction to so many parts of world (& the Bush Admin. threatens to bring even more). Hedges does not mince words in describing the horrors he has seen and there were a multitude of passages that brought me to tears and provoked much thought. I hope that all those who support war and try to silent dissent end up reading this book. Seriously an amazing book – I highly recommend it.”
—
Lubna (5 out of 5 stars)
