Rating: 
Summary: A good read, but don't take it seriously.
Review: Chris Hedges certainly offers some insight into how society reacts to war or how war is manipulated by different societies. But I can't take him seriously enough to consider this a literary classic by its supporters (one of which being the biased LA Times).For example, Hedges speaks about the Palestine conflict. He appears at first to blame Israel and Palestine equally, but then turns around and begins to point the blame on Israel. This surprises me, as even people who are anti-Israel admit that Arab leaders such as Yasser Arafat have used war and their people's poverty to unite against a common "enemy." He doesn't speak about atrocities committed against the Jewish people of Arab countries in response to Israel's presense, or - more obviously - Palestinian suicide bombings and massacres of Israeli civilians. The book is full of such hypocratic sidings. Hedges seem keen to criticize the United States for their attack on Iraq during both Gulf Wars, but doesn't seem to mind that Saddam Hussein led wars against Kuwait and Iran, both to earn him power and favors among his people and lifestyle. Milosevic's Serbian nationalism is covered extensively in this book, but little is said of Hussein's manipulation of his people and his Sunni nationalism, or his wars against his own people during times of peace, while the United States is criticized for death inflicted on Iraqi soldiers...during war time. I also find distaste in his abhorrance for ANY form of patriotism. Well I apologize, Mister Hedges, if my family having an American flag on our front doorstep every day makes me as bad as Milosevic, but I hold no grudges against non-Americans nor do I always agree with our government. I simply love being American, and that's that. Perhaps if Hedges had remained more neutral this could have been considered an anti-Clausewitz view of war. Sadly, he has a habit of taking sides and therefore comes out biased and full of fluff. Therefore, I suggest this book be taken in doses and ancidotes. Otherwise, don't take it too seriously.
Rating: 
Summary: The real story about war
Review: Chris is a journalist and war correspondent. He's covered
many of the bloodiest conflicts in the last 15-20 years.
In spite of the danger, he found himself addicted to the
rush of war. If you ever want to read what war is really about and how
it psychologically damages not only the soldiers involved,
but also the "non-combatant" populations and so-called
leaders back home, this book is for you. He
talks about the amnesia-insanity of entire societies
that occurs when war happens. But he offers no solutions
for how to get off this relentless treadmill to hell.
His descriptions of personal experiences from covering
wars on several continents are like sucker punches to the gut. One quote:
"The enduring attraction of war is this:
Even with its destruction and carnage it can give you
what we long for in life. It can give us purpose, meaning, a
reason for living. Only when we are in the midst of conflict
does the shallowness and vapidness of much of our lives become
apparent." The best antidote? A real leader. Vote for Dennis Kucinich who
really understands the value of peace.
Rating:
Summary: Taking down the glorious myth of war
Review: Chris Hedges' book is a graphic and eloquent description of the personal and social forces that lead to war, and its brutal reality that few see or believe. He has seen war up close and writes frankly about its horrors, and their effect on him and others he has known in that context. War, he writes, is a drug that hooks most people who come anywhere near it with a promise of being part of something greater than themselves. But he makes a convincing case for another path that is constructive rather than destructive, and that leads to both happiness and meaning in life. This is no self help book, but a cold look at something that eventually touches everyone.
Rating: 
Summary: There's a deep ambiguity in the title
Review: Award-winning New York Times foreign correspondent Chris Hedges' scathing indictment of war is one of the truest rants you'll ever read; that is, until he gets to the cause and the explanation of war, and then I am afraid his education, not his experience, fails him. It is not the expression of a human death instinct as derived from Freudian psychology, as Hedges has convinced himself, that is the reason that humans periodically engage in the wanton slaughter of one another and get high while doing it. He is closer to the truth when he calls war a mass madness or a collective pathology. Human beings do not wish death any more than other creatures. There is not in the human psyche a struggle between Eros and Thanatos, as Hedges would have us believe, with Thanatos sometimes bursting forth in savage triumph over the forces of love. Instead the death that haunts us all and to which we will retire, is in the very nature of things. All that are born must die. The wish is not in us, but in something larger, in the scheme of things, one might say, or simply it is the way of life. I am not even sure that Hedges really understands the purpose of war within human culture. War is the ultimate means of settling disputes ("Politics by other means"). From an evolutionary point of view, war is adaptive. It is the fundamental expression of the power of the tribe (now the nation state). War exists because it has been successful. Those who won the wars lived on to more successfully reproduce their kind. Those who lost the wars did not. Hedges wonders about the clerics who, though men of God and lovers of peace and forgiveness, are often in the forefront of those who urge the young into battle. But one of the purposes of religion is to give credence to the mythology of war that will delude the warriors into making the ultimate sacrifice for the good of the tribe. Those clerics who did not urge on the warriors became dead clerics, their tribes gone the way of dust, and the artifacts and tenets of their religion wiped from the face of the earth. War seems to give us meaning because it is so completely demanding emotionally and psychologically. Fail at this game and there will be no more games. And so our attention is focused and our emotional lives completely captured. Everything else is by comparison insignificant. And then the war is over and nothing else--no drug, no whirling dervish dance--can ever bring us such emotional highs again. Hedges is right in his indictment of nationalism and patriotism--modern expressions of the bestiary of tribalism. And he is right that when the dogs of war are let loose all fall under their spell. Not just the warriors who do the killing or the clerics who find the justifications or the old men who cheer them on, or the press who support the lies of the state, but also the women whose hearts beat a little faster at the sight of a man in a uniform, and the children who sense the absolute urgency of the battle and quickly emulate the warriors in every way. No one is immune. All fall down. Like Freud, Hedges is fatalistic in his belief that as long as there are humans there will be war. But I disagree. I believe that disputes can ultimately be handled by the rule of law. This is not something that is going to happen in the near future. I doubt that there is anyone alive today who will see a world without war. But eventually all the planet will be like a town in, say, Switzerland in the sense that disputes among neighbors will be prevented by the mechanisms of society from raging out of control. Murder itself will not end, but the mass murder of war will. The reason we still have wars is that the rule of law has little applicability outside of individual nation states. The Hobbesian rule of the jungle applies there. It is not love alone that can triumph over war (Hedges' theme in the last chapter). The natural state of human beings is that of peace and if not brotherhood, at least tolerance. Despite the fact that there have been few if any years in human history free of war (Hedges claims thirty-some; I think zero)--despite the fact that humans have never really been free of war or the fear of war (or the "glory" of it--"that old lie") most days of our lives are lived in peace. It is during the times of peace that we forget the horror, the delusion, the madness, the ultimate futility, and the ghoulishness of war. Hedges has not forgotten; indeed his primary purpose in this book is to remind us. He speaks from personal experience as a veteran correspondent who has covered wars from San Salvador to Bosnia. He has seen the absolute immorality of war up close, but he is fair in condemning Jew and Arab, Serb, Croat and Muslim alike. He is in a sense a "war lover," not the sort that John Hershey wrote about in his novel of that name, but a war lover as addict, as he freely admits; a man who came home from the adrenaline rush only when he "no longer had the emotional and physical resilience of youth." The "meaning" that Hedges finds in war is less significant than the meaning he might find in a better understanding of our biological and cultural selves through a study of not just history, psychology and literature (which he has studied) but also through a study of science, which is everyday shedding more and more light on who we are and why we do what we do.
Rating: 
Summary: Who do you mean, "us" Kimosabe?
Review: Chris Hedges must have a meaningless life if he ever imagined, seriously, that "War is a force that gives us meaning." Perhaps "confessions of a post-modern, caricaturing some of the people he despises" would be a better title? There a very few things worth fighting, killing and dying over. On a very good day, those things _may_ make war a bit less terrible than the alternative, a minimalist sort of "meaning" but still more solid than Hedges. Try Siegfried Sassoon if you want something real. A few of us re-read him in boot camp, as Jim "Fields of Fire" Webb carried Catch-22 in his rucksack, leading a platoon in I Corps. You begin to understand why the university president turned-off Hedges microphone in the middle of a speech to a graduating class.
Rating:
Summary: Why not an anti-war message?
Review: This book is provacative and disturbing in that it strips away the veneer of war by relating the author's eye witness accounts of the brutatily, fear, humiliation, destruction, physchological addiction and damage (and occasional acts of humanity) that war brings to those who participate in it or are simply caught up in it and unable to escape. The book is at its strongest in this regard. The author does not attempt an analysis of the causes of war per se but does consitently attack the tenets of racism, nationalism and various ideologies used to promote and justify it and does a good job of exposing just who these promoters often are. He also includes a fair dose of self-criticism and angst concerning his own participation in covering war as a correspondent, and includes stories of other correspondents. He also touches upon the ways in which the media use and are used by war's promoters and participants. The book is short, more of an extended essay, and not structured as an analysis or argument. The author strays in his philosphical take on issues of love versus war or friendship within war that I think distract from his essential point in writing the book --- exposing war for what it is. But again, this is an essay style book and not an historical or scientific analysis, so opine away he does and why not. Perhaps some of the virulent criticism he has received emanates from his daring to lump America's own often-virulent nationalism and its own war promoters and war managers into the same basket as the more unsavory types inhabiting Central America or the Balkans. In so doing he insinuates that we Americans too are part and parcel of the horrors of war and not immune to its appeal. Poor fellow, in this post 9-11 world to question anything about 'us' is to invite rabid criticism. I for one highly recommend this book. I found it to be at times insightful, at times disturbing, and always thought provoking. Why not an anti-war book? Everyone has a right to tell their story and give their opinion. For much more indepth historical and scientific analyses of the causes and lessons of war read anything by Hanson or Keegan -- but keep this little book in mind when you do.
Rating:
Summary: Post Modern mush
Review: The book is sure to generate discussion, but doesn't bear up well under its title argument. Hedges opts for irony rather than a thorough examination of the forces that lead to war. He relies mostly on his journalistic experiences and a grab bag of literary references to challenge the premise he states on the cover of the book. He offers up a series of essays rather loosely written covering a broad range of conflicts from the Falkland Islands to Yugoslavia. He is at his best when describing his first hand experiences and at his worst when attempting to philosophize on the root causes of war. He journeys back and forth from Homer to various Yugoslavian writers including Ivo Andric, all of which should be familiar to most readers. Hedges tries to deflate the myths that surround the more virulent forms of nationalism that lead to war, but doesn't make much of an effort to root out the history of these conflicts. Rather he chooses to keep war on an abstract plane, which doesn't hold up well under close scrutiny of the various conflicts he describes. He becomes romantic when trying to venture forth the argument that love conquers war, but here again he is dealing mostly in the abstract in a chapter entitled Eros and Thanatos. He attempts to discern between comrades in the time of war and true friendship, which he feels would go a long way toward eliminating most conflicts. The arguments melt down into a post-modern mush. The copy I purchased had numerous typos, which characterized a rather hasty job of editing. It seems that this was a book rushed to the publisher to cash in on Hedges Pulitzer-winning work with the NY Times. Maybe the paperback has been more closely scrutinized. But for those looking for a thorough examination of the primal force war plays in world politics I think you will be sadly disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Despite writing for NYTimes, Mr Hedges speaks "truth"
Review: Having been a witness to war throughout the world Mr Hedges who was invited to speak at a recent college graduation ceremony was silenced and rudely treated by some students who mistake the concept of "guest speaker" only with those they agree with.
As the president of the college stated when their guest's microphone was disconnected --the purpose of an education is to learn to appreciate a wide range of opinions, particularly those with whom some dissent. Though there have been journalists like Blair or Mike Barnicle,truth be told is that the Bush and company have repeatedly lied to the American people and we deserve to read/hear other perspectives such as Hedges. Obviously the Louisiana critic did not read the book...
Rating:
Summary: Right on Target
Review: In light of the incident wherein the author was booed off the stage at a college graduation ceremony, I felt that I had to give credence to this honest and telling depiction of war as seen through the eyes of one who reports it. Mr. Hedges is extraordinary in detailing that what is seen as necessary or justifiable is mostly simple cruelty. Those who have not seen combat imagine a fairly santized version of what actually occurs. It is with this expectation that the news media ensures what promenades before us when the news reaches our homes. Chris Hedges is a remarkable author in this era of irrational nationalism and one that should be given respectable audience.
Rating:
Summary: Whose War ? Whose Meaning ?
Review: War is A Force That Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges is a gripping personal meditation by an author who has seen war up close in many parts of the world and who is not afraid to confront the myths of war that even journalists themselves foster in their work. I think this book is timely in the light of Gulf War II and the role of embedded journalists in that conflict. I think this book can be used as a polemic against those who support the idea that war and just war reasoning really provide an answer to the failure of diplomacy. Hedges' experiences have not lead him to become a pacifist but it does make us evaluate the question of the 'good to be gained' by war which our government, media, and the majority of Americans seemed to avoid before engaging in a preemptive strike on Iraq in 2003. Hedges takes us through the hell of war. Maybe if more people would take the journey with Hedges through his book they would be less inclined to support violent solutions to international problems or at least consider the arguments of millions of ordinary people around the world who question war's efficacy and see the evil of spending vast sums of money to prepare for future wars.
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