He tackles the ugly truths about humanity's love affair with war, offering a sophisticated, nuanced, intelligent meditation on the subject that is also gritty, powerful, and unforgettable.
Anchor
June 2003
On Sale: June 10, 2003
224 pages ISBN: 1400034639 EAN: 9781400034635 Paperback Add to Wish List
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 the most 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.