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Title: What Every Person Should Know About War by Chris Hedges ISBN: 0-7432-5512-7 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 09 June, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.14 (7 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: The guts of no glory...
Comment: Hedges is of devout faith and a brilliant classically trained mind. Exactly the kind of person we need commenting on war. However a mind as good as his needs to offer to us some kind of real politik advice as to how to win this war. And win future wars without violence. I am dismayed that he, in the media rounds, reduces his war experience to point-scoring against the various virulent fascisms of the age rather than "thinking-out" peace. Despite all the horror,if the inbuilt assumption that war is inevitible is sneaking around, war will win. Who has the courage to defeat war? Are we too meek to seek that? These are our wars not god's. What is the point in waging a media war on top of this war? Isn't it just another "war-porn" cop-out for both lefties and righties? I realise that this book may be the least appropriate forum for my point given it is "straight-up". But Hedges real-politik silence is too loud, and risks turning his exigetical skills, into merely a reverse form of war idolotary - to be awake against war, but unarmed to resist it.
Rating: 5
Summary: The Title Says It All
Comment: This slim manual is certainly a bitter pill, but it's medicine that Americans, and especially American government officials, would be well served to hold their nose and swallow down. From the possible results of a bullet wound in different areas of the body, to the (scandalously low) payscale of soldiers, to the facts about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, to the debunking of the apocryphal story of Vietnam soldiers being spat upon by protesters, Hedges makes his report in a manner which is concise, clinical, and astonishingly objective. In an age of media reporting that sees nothing wrong with broadcasting combat footage with a canned soundtrack, this is a book which reminds us of the very real horrors of war, and the very real risks our soldiers face in a combat situation.
Rating: 4
Summary: Accessibility is a force that gives us higher book sales
Comment: In 2002, Chris Hedges wrote the highly acclaimed WIAFTGUM, a beautifully written book that explored the powerful pull of aggression on the body politic. A subtle work that deftly combined psychology, philosophy, history, and political science, WIAFTGUM was a critical success and, I suspect, a decent seller for a first-time author. (I know that CH is an accomplished reporter, but a first book is a first book -- Bob Woodward he isn't, yet.)
One good book deserves another, so CH has returned with a marketable sophomore effort, WEPSKAW. Its Q-and-A format allows for quick absorption of surprising information -- I never would have imagined how many military pregnancies end in abortion, nor that the Army designed its RMEs to keep soldiers constipated. (You're welcome.) Sadly, most of the data is liable to be forgotten as quickly as a college freshman forgets the details from History 101. (Pop quiz, hot shot: How much did the Korean War cost in 2003 dollars? Do you remember? Well do ya, punk??) You might even get as much of a 'Huh -- I never knew that' reaction reading the book the second time around.
More of a drawback is that, long about the third chapter or so, you start to feel like you're reading the longest 'Harper's Index' known to man. (Amount requested for rebuilding Iraq: $87 billion. Amount requested for Head Start: Twenty-five cents. Yeah, I get it.) You respect the hours of research put into the project, but you were already sold on page 40; the rest is overkill. The deadpan delivery, initially effective, gradually becomes facile. You can almost see the staffers at Adbusters overlaying the sober paragraphs about land mines onto photos of bloody Afghans. Once again, I think I get what you're saying -- now put down the sledgehammer.
I'm surprised to see reviewers taking CH to task for 'lying' about the book's not having any agenda. I don't think CH ever claimed not to have an agenda in writing the book; he only said that he would make his case calmly, clearly, and constantly supported by the facts. That "subversive" agenda, by the way, is simply to note that war is a serious business, and should not be entered into lightly. You'd think that would go without saying... until you remember that the Oval Office has been manned by two draft-dodgers in a row now, with the current occupant blithely telling senators to "F**k Saddam -- we're taking him out." A sober counterweight and a sense of perspective? Bring 'em on!
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Title: War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges ISBN: 1400034639 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 10 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: The Sorrows of Empire : Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic [The American Empire Project ] by Chalmers Johnson ISBN: 0805070044 Publisher: Metropolitan Books Pub. Date: 13 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People by Jonathan Schell ISBN: 0805044566 Publisher: Metropolitan Books Pub. Date: 01 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
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Title: "A Problem from Hell" : America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power ISBN: 0060541644 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 06 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq by Sheldon Rampton, John Stauber ISBN: 1585422762 Publisher: J. P. Tarcher Pub. Date: July, 2003 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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