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War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning

4.12 of 5 stars 4.12 · rating details · 2,415 ratings · 340 reviews

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 throu...more

Paperback, 224 pages

Published June 10th 2003 by Anchor (first published September 4th 2002)

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Jul 27, 2012 Bobby rated it 5 of 5 stars

I think I'm finally ready to review this book. I've given it a few weeks to settle in my mind.

I'm prepared to say that this book is important enough that everyone should read it. It asks questions of us as a society that need to be considered and answered by each individual before we take measures to begin or escalate any armed conflict.

Hedges does an amazing job of forcing these questions to the table in a concise and direct way respecting both the philosophical dimensions and the actualities i...more

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Jun 20, 2008 Ryan rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: George W. Bush

Shelves: favorite

Read this book to be disturbed. The author is a seasoned war correspondent who's been in the thick of warfare from El Salvador and Guatemala to Iraq and Bosnia. It is an anti-war treatise by a man who admits being addicted to war.

Hedges describes that he is "hooked" on the narcotic of war, on the rush that it gives. It's a world where power is all that matters. The meek do not inherit the Earth; they are murdered, and then often mutilated. The book is a philosophical inquiry into What War Is. It...more Read this book to be disturbed. The author is a seasoned war correspondent who's been in the thick of warfare from El Salvador and Guatemala to Iraq and Bosnia. It is an anti-war treatise by a man who admits being addicted to war.

Hedges describes that he is "hooked" on the narcotic of war, on the rush that it gives. It's a world where power is all that matters. The meek do not inherit the Earth; they are murdered, and then often mutilated. The book is a philosophical inquiry into What War Is. It feels like it gives meaning to the lives of the men fighting it, he says, but it does so by playing to our most animal instincts, and by obscuring and numbing all that make our regular lives joyful. And by destroying individualism, turning people into objects, and life into a myth.

I read the book with a yellow highlighter in one hand, to mark the passages that really stuck with me. One:

"The enduring attraction of war is this: Even with its destruction and carnage it can give us what we long for in life. It can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for living. . . . It gives us resolve, a cause. It allows us to be noble." (page 3)

Another:

"Most of those who are thrust into combat soon find it impossible to maintain the mythic perception of war. . . . Wars that lose their mythic stature for the public, such as Korea or Vietnam, are doomed to failure, for war is exposed for what it is - organized murder." (page 21)

Here is a description of what war does to us: Our minds, our culture, our love of our fellow man. It makes us lie to ourselves and to each other. The book was published in 2002, after the 9/11 attacks, and just on the eve of America's invasion of Iraq. It describes how a culture can censor itself into believing a great cause and squash the speech of any who disagree (e.g., Scott Ritter, or The Dixie Chicks). Another quote:

"By destroying authentic culture - that which allows us to question and examine ourselves and our society - the state erodes the moral fabric. It is replaced with a warped version of reality. The enemy is dehumanized; the universe starkly divided between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. . . . Cultural or national symbols that do not support the crusade are often ruthlessly removed." (page 63)

Genocide, ethnic cleansing, mutilation, the killing of innocents; it is all the side of war unseen to those supporting it. The war is enabled by myth, and the myth is a lie. The lie is captivating and grabs us all. Every nation feels like it is fighting the ultimate evil, and they have no choice but to defeat it. The war will only end when the lie has collapsed under overwhelming evidence - hard-fought, over a long time. All that is left when the lie disappears is guilt, and shame, and the holes in people's lives where loved ones used to be. And the anger of the victims: The seeds of the next war.

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Dec 07, 2007 James rated it 2 of 5 stars

The imagery and polemic of this book are strong. His take on war is brutal and honest enough that I found myself deeply affected at many points. And his prose is wonderful. Ergo, I can't say I didn't like it, but I wanted to like it more than I did.

But the style was off-putting to say the least. Like any good journalist, Hedges does an excellent job relaying experience and retelling stories from others. But each chapter is filled with episodes he recounts, that seem haphazardly thrown together....more

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Apr 17, 2013 Dan added it

Shelves: 2012

though heartfelt, inspiring and disturbing, i can't say i wholeheartedly loved this book. it deals with some HEAVY topics - genocide, rape, xenophobia - and it's written with an intimate awareness of how such atrocities arise, escalate, disappear and return. many of the observations remind me of george orwell, whose fantastic essay "politics and the english language" seems to have (at least partially) influenced hedges' thoughts on language. actually, these are the most informative sections of t...more

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Mza reading Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt now (one chapter left) and share yr suspicion of Hedges' moralizing, as well-earned as it might be from hi...more
Apr 18, 2013 07:44am

Mza not sure I'm understanding you here, though: "... the word 'perversion' appears a bit too often for my tastes (though many of the issues discussed mig...more
updated Apr 18, 2013 07:49am

Dan i just finished days of desruction myself, which is even more guilty of what i criticize above than war is. totally with you on taking hedges with a g...more
Apr 18, 2013 03:53pm

Jun 10, 2008 Tracy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: theory

This is a wonderful and brutal book.

Hedges draws on a number of brilliant thinkers...and he draws on his own experience in order to describe the effects of war on us.

He says, in part, that we humans crave meaning, and war gives us meaning in a more intense fashion than anything else. What else could so quickly and easily delineate who the enemy is? It's the person trying to kill me! What else could shape life so perfectly but the need to save my own skin?

Hedges experienced this directly in many...more

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Jul 08, 2008 Sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Sarah by: Jonathan Morgenstern

Shelves: non-fiction, 2008-reads, favorites, war

So excellent.

Question: Why do you feel so intensely in war? Yet it fades so quick?
"There are few individual relationships- the only possible way to form friendships- in war. ... Comrades seek to lose their identities in the relationship. Friends do not... Friends find themselves in each other and thereby gain greater self-knowledge and self-possession. They discover... unknown potentialities for joy and understanding. The struggle to remain friends, the struggle to explore the often painful re...more So excellent.

Question: Why do you feel so intensely in war? Yet it fades so quick?
"There are few individual relationships- the only possible way to form friendships- in war. ... Comrades seek to lose their identities in the relationship. Friends do not... Friends find themselves in each other and thereby gain greater self-knowledge and self-possession. They discover... unknown potentialities for joy and understanding. The struggle to remain friends, the struggle to explore the often painful recesses of two hearts, to reach the deepest parts of another's being, to integrate our own emotions and desires with th needs of the friend, are challenged by the collective rush of war. There are fewer demands if we join the crowd and give our emotions over to the communal crusade."

Question: Why are survivors so outcast and stigmatized?
There is a spiritual collapse after war. Societies struggle with the wanton destruction not only of property and cities but of those they loved. The erosion of morality and social responsibility becomes painfully evident in war's wake. Many feel used. By then it is too late.... In the wake of the war comes a normalization that levels victims and perpetrators. Victims and survivors are is an awkward reminder of the collective complicity. Their presence inspires discomfort. So too with perpetrators. But it is often the victims who suffer the worst bouts of guilt and remorse. Many victims grasp, in a way the perpetrators do not, the inverted moral hierarchy. They see this inversion in their own struggle to survive. They realize, in a way that the perpetrators again do not, that the difference between the oppressed and the oppressors is not absolute. And they often wonder if they could have done more to save those who were lost around them.

Question: Why do we feel so erotic and alive in a war zone?
"We discover in the communal struggle, the shared sense of meaning and purpose, a cause. War fills our spiritual void. I do not miss war, but I miss what it brought. I can never say I was happy in the midst of fighting but I had a sense of purpose, a calling. And this is a quality war shares with love, for we are, in love. (less)

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Jan 29, 2008 Leah rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone who likes war movies because they wish they were in them

Outstanding book. The author (a former war reporter) discusses the addictive nature of war, both for soldiers and the public. "War" becomes an idealized fiction that we rally around--that "gives us meaning," gives us a purpose, gives us a way to join together as a nation, but that the actual reality of what a war is and what it entails is beyond any experience that one can truly describe. War is beyond hell. A true experience of war is something that can never be captured in a movie, book, or ne...more

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Jan 15, 2008 Lubna rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: evereyone

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 indi...more

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Mar 22, 2007 grace rated it 5 of 5 stars

one of the most powerful books i have ever read. my review (posted on my blog immediately after reading it):

War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, writes Chris Hedges, and upon completion of what The New York Times called his "powerful chronicle of modern war... a potent and eloquent warning," I do not feel guilty or ashamed of being human-- no, instead I am paralyzed with fear. Hedges takes no sides in his painfully poignant work, except perhaps the side of humanity, which as Freud writes and he...more one of the most powerful books i have ever read. my review (posted on my blog immediately after reading it):

War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, writes Chris Hedges, and upon completion of what The New York Times called his "powerful chronicle of modern war... a potent and eloquent warning," I do not feel guilty or ashamed of being human-- no, instead I am paralyzed with fear. Hedges takes no sides in his painfully poignant work, except perhaps the side of humanity, which as Freud writes and he notes, exists defined by the inescapable dynamic between Eros and Death and is compelled by its very nature to seek out self-destruction. Fascinating and profoundly disturbing, this book explores the dizzyingly narcotic elements of war and the atrocities-- in horrifyingly accounts from personal experience-- of which man is not only capable, but to which he is driven. "And yet, despite all this, I am not a pacifist," Hedges allows; "I wrote this book not to dissuade us from war but to understand it... this book is not a call for inaction. It is a call for repentance."

Reminiscent of Desmond Tutu’s No Future Without Forgiveness, Hedges postulates that “the only antidote to ward off self-destruction is humility and ultimately compassion.” Borrowing from Homer, Shakespeare, Bosnian Nobel laureates, and Holocaust survivor Ka’Tzetnik, his reports draw from his years as a foreign correspondent to conclude that:
"Happiness is elusive and protean. And it is sterile when devoid of meaning. But meaning, when it is set in the vast arena of war with its high stakes, its adrenaline-driven rushes, its bold sweeps and drama, is heartless and self-destructive. The initial selflessness of war mirrors that of love, the chief emotion war destroys. And this is what war often looks and feels like, at its inception: love... We are tempted to reduce life to a simple search for happiness. Happiness, however, withers if there is no meaning. The other temptation is to disavow the search for happiness in order to be faithful to that which provides meaning. But to live only for meaning-- indifferent to all happiness-- makes us fanatic, self-righteous, and cold. It leaves us cut off from our own humanity and the humanity of others. We must hope for grace, for our lives to be sustained by moments of meaning and happiness, both equally worthy of human communion."

I find myself almost wishing as I lounge on my plush carpet under a window filled with sunlit trees and blues on of the most beautiful days of the year thus far, that I hadn’t read this book, or that I could write it off as from another world, another species. But "Aristotle said that only two living entities are capable of complete solitude and complete separateness: God and beast. Because of this... the isolated individual can never be adequately human... if we do not acknowledge such an attraction [to war], which is, in some ways, akin to love, we can never combat it."(less)

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May 28, 2007 Beth Barnett rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is an incredibly powerful book about the reality of war, written by a former war correspondent. Hedges discusses the myth and reality of war, the reality of the presence of death, desecration and disrespect of the living and the dead in war, the victimization of innocents and those who attempt to be moral, and the jingoism of the press that usually covers up these horrible realities. Hedges also describes the draw toward war he and others have felt for its excitement and risk. The book disc...more

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Oct 03, 2007 Audra Wolfe rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: intellectual war protestors

Shelves: bookclub

I wanted to love this book. My rating doesn't quite do it justice. It's very well done, but so depressing that I just couldn't bear to finish it, so while I only gave it 2 stars, on an absolute scale it's probably more of a 4 or 5.

Chris Hedges, the author, is an experienced war correspondent who have covered countless wretched international conflicts, including El Salvador, Bosnia, Sudan, Israel and Palestine. Like the title says, the overall theme is the addictive power of war to give our lives...more

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Jun 19, 2012 Ami rated it 4 of 5 stars

The first line of his book was what gripped me into continuing reading it: "When our own nation is at war with any other, we detest them under the character of cruel, perfidious, unjust and violent: But always esteem ourselves and allies equitable, moderate, and merciful." Hedges was a war correspondent in Bosnia at the time of the war. I really enjoyed this book, and would (arguably) recommend reading it with Frankl's "Man's Search For Meaning". Hedges' frank view of how war is merely attractiv...more

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Feb 04, 2013 T-bone rated it 3 of 5 stars

Constant references to classical literature may have helped the author understand his experiences but they just got on my tits. Eg., "In war we may deform ourselves, our essence, by subverting passion, loyalty, and love to duty. Perhaps one could argue that is why Virgil's Aeneas appears so woefully unhappy in The Aeneid." Such insights make me woefully unhappy. Also had to take a star off for the silly title.

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Mar 12, 2009 Michela rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jun 11, 2013 Stan Murai rated it 4 of 5 stars

The author, Chris Hedges, is a Pulitzer Prize journalist
with some fifteen years as a war correspondent. He draws
on his experiences reporting on the front lines in places
as varied as Central America, Iraq, Libya, the Sudan, Iran,
and Bosnia. He writes this book about the nature of war itself,
its causes and consequences, the emotional, physical, and moral
devastation on those who actually fight its battles. The basic
idea that nations and societies are seduced by war and that those
who bear arms...more

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Apr 07, 2013 Max rated it 5 of 5 stars

I've always admired Chris Hedges because he doesn't subscribe to blind patriotism or the romanticizing of war; he tells it how it is. Having been a war correspondent for years and years, he's seen the reality of war and is sure to never skip over the gruesome details to spare us the readers. I recommend this book for those that can handle the truths that the author dishes out, some of which are not very easy to read. I also commend Hedges for never taking sides, as he is quick to condemn the inh...more

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Oct 07, 2012 Benito rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is one of the most amazing books I have ever read. It may be one of the finest books about war, and mankind’s addiction to it, ever written. I devoured it in two sittings after being handed it by a friend. Immediately after opening it I wanted to sit down and not stop reading. It is addictive, and addiction, as well as the competing passions of Eros (love) and Thanatos (death), are it's subject.

Hedges is a self-confessed war addict who describes the memories that haunt him from his decades...more This is one of the most amazing books I have ever read. It may be one of the finest books about war, and mankind’s addiction to it, ever written. I devoured it in two sittings after being handed it by a friend. Immediately after opening it I wanted to sit down and not stop reading. It is addictive, and addiction, as well as the competing passions of Eros (love) and Thanatos (death), are it's subject.

Hedges is a self-confessed war addict who describes the memories that haunt him from his decades as a war correspondent on every page, using them to illustrate his points. Written only a year after 9/11 Hedges boldly strips back the false glamour and the facades of heroism, bravery, patriotism and false-nobility that drive politically-motivated wars such as the then newly-minted War on Terror. He enunciates through his time as both a hostage and reporter on front lines in Sarajevo, El Salvador, Iraq, Israel, and throughout Africa, that there is no personal or social upside to war but yet, like it's co-joined opposite love, it is crucial to human experience and as addictive as the heroin and other drugs it drives it's participants to partake of. War is a drug that one grows to love, one that drives it's users to suicidal exploits both during and after battle. All sane soldiers are emotionally scarred for life, only true psychopaths (such as Milosevic et al) are not altered.

War correspondents such as himself, along with politicians and historians, are complicit in constantly recreating the myth of war as noble and personally fulfilling. This myth is shattered within the first moments of real warfare. People do not die like actors, but slowly, painfully, crying for their mother's teat. Most of them are civilians, increasingly so. Killing another human being is physically sickening as well as psychologically scarring, soldiers sometimes vomiting and pissing their pants after their first socially-sanctioned butchering of another person. Even those soldiers and correspondents who seem unmoved, who walk casually amongst rows upon rows of dead, eventually erupt in moments of either socialised or internalised violence. Hedges describes his own violent moment of catharsis when he took out his frustrations from Sarajevo upon a hapless airline clerk. Once the myth of war is shattered, a myth we are all unwittingly raised with, the individual can never engage with civilian society the same way again. He has seen past the lie of it.

War to Hedges is also a form of socially-sanctioned necrophilia. Sex and death are immutably entwined in this tome and his writing style is so fluid and forward-driving that you may, like me, find yourself devouring the book in one or two sittings. Hedges' education in Latin, Greek and English allows him to punctuate his work with appropriate musings from Catullus to Philip Larkin, giving those poets renewed relevance and intensity for this reader.

If you are interested in war, sex, love, death, politics, or just human psychology in any sense then you should read this book. The beauty of Hedges' prose and the way he unfolds his story means that it is with both joy and apprehension that I fear his words will be with me forever. It should be noted however that as dark as his story is Hedges, as a Harvard scholar of Divinity amongst other things, knows that some positive message of hope must be found for his own and his readers' sanity amongst his decades knee-deep in death and suffering. Hence his focus by the end becomes increasingly towards Eros, as entwined with Thanatos as she always is.

This is Hedges' first book and he has written eight more since on conflict, class and religion. Hedges in no pacifist, and no atheist. In fact in another book he apparently argues that atheism is a form of fundamentalism. At present I am reticent to read his other books for fear none could live up to "War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning". This fear will probably pass. However War, Hedges argues, will not, at least as long as humanity is existent. Strange then that he never quotes Mathew 24:

"... you shall hear of wars and rumours of wars ... For nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom..."

Perhaps then, even for wet-pacifistic armchair-agnostics such as myself, all the more reason to read this book.

#

Benito Di Fonzo.
Sydney, October, 2012.(less)

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Mar 10, 2011 Trishnyc rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a very well written book that explores and examines war, its meanings, reasons and justifications. It tries to take on all sides of war, the victors and the victims and how they view the outcome of their struggles. I liked how the author discussed the ways in which war allows those who wage it to see the world in as black and white, absolutes with little shades of gray in between. "They" are bad and "We" are good. This kind of thinking allows the suspension of introspection and make many...more

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Jan 31, 2010 Paul Graf rated it 5 of 5 stars

In the introduction to his searing portrait of war, Chris Hedges writes, "I have been in ambushes on desolate stretches of Central American roads, shot at in the marshes of southern Iraq, imprisoned in the Sudan, beaten by Saudi military police, deported from Libya and Iran, captured and held for a week by the Iraqi Republican Guard during the Shiite rebellion following the Gulf War, strafed by Russian Mig-21s in Bosnia, fired upon by Serb snipers, and shelled for days in Sarajevo with deafening...more In the introduction to his searing portrait of war, Chris Hedges writes, "I have been in ambushes on desolate stretches of Central American roads, shot at in the marshes of southern Iraq, imprisoned in the Sudan, beaten by Saudi military police, deported from Libya and Iran, captured and held for a week by the Iraqi Republican Guard during the Shiite rebellion following the Gulf War, strafed by Russian Mig-21s in Bosnia, fired upon by Serb snipers, and shelled for days in Sarajevo with deafening rounds of heavy artillery that threw out thousands of deadly bits of iron fragments." Hedges has seen war, and its effect upon those who wage it, at close range. And in War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, he brings fifteen years of experience reporting from the front lines to bear on the very nature of war itself, its causes and consequences, and the physical, emotional, and moral devastation it leaves in its wake.

Hedges argues that war is both a deadly addiction—a drug that offers an unmatchable intoxication, the thrill of being released from the moral strictures of everyday life—and a unifying force that provides a sense of meaning, purpose, and self-sacrifice that can wash away life's trivial concerns. But the meaningfulness of combat, Hedges suggests, depends upon the myth of war. In reality, no matter what grand cause it is supposed to support, war is simply the basest form of aggression: "organized murder." Once war begins, the moral universe collapses and every manner of atrocity can be justified in the eyes of those who wage it, because the cause is just, the enemy is inhuman, and only war can restore balance to the world. Hedges reveals the hollowness of such thinking and makes an impassioned plea for humility, love, and compassion as the human race's only hope for survival. Only when a nation can accept its share of blame and see its enemy with compassion rather than hatred can war be averted and true peace prevail.

Combining a great erudition of the literature of war—from Homer to Shakespeare to Viktor Frankl—with an unflinching focus on the particular and terrifying reality of combat, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning is a sobering book whose relevance could not be more pointed.(less)

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Mar 17, 2013 Ismael Galvan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Chis Hedges was a war correspondent for the New York Times in many of the defining warzones of our times: the Balkans, Central America, and the Middle East. He has reported on wars from the inside, surviving ambushes, diving for cover alongside his military escorts, and witnessing the aftermath of every atrocity imaginable. The psychological scars from knowing the face of mass produced death are still with him. In his travels around the world he’s found a recurring dynamic at work, the addiction...more Chis Hedges was a war correspondent for the New York Times in many of the defining warzones of our times: the Balkans, Central America, and the Middle East. He has reported on wars from the inside, surviving ambushes, diving for cover alongside his military escorts, and witnessing the aftermath of every atrocity imaginable. The psychological scars from knowing the face of mass produced death are still with him. In his travels around the world he’s found a recurring dynamic at work, the addiction of soldiers and citizens to the ecstasy of war. Hedges covers this topic exclusively in his book, War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning.

This book is journalistic, philosophical, and part social critique. It is effectiveness rests in analyzing the myth of war. He explains how it’s created, who perpetuates it, how it’s disseminated in society, what function it serves, its psychological effects, how it’s maintained, and what happens when it’s finally punctured by the undeniable reality of war. He cites his own experiences and the accounts of soldiers and citizens in war to illustrate where and how these recurring themes unfold in real life. These accounts include graphic accounts of murder, rape, torture, suicide, genocide that deflate the glorious lie which herds generations of men into battle. Yet amongst all this carnage there is a lust for combat and its incomparable rush that fills the emptiness felt by entire nations. No longer is anyone insignificant in the theater of war, we are elevated to the calling of destiny, and to push back against it feels almost impossible. To avoid its intoxicating effects is outright hopeless.

I have often wondered how people I’ve greatly respected for their intelligence and wisdom, people I have personally known, would become incapable of discussing war in any rational way. Their responses on every aspect of the War on Terror would be variations of the empty, clichéd reasons parroted mainstream media; “they hate us for our freedom”, “Muslims are evil”, and “torture is permissible when we do it.” I wouldn’t accept such absurd reasons for going to war, and so I turned away from the news and began reading writers like Noam Chomsky who gave a grimmer picture of what’s going on. When I approached people with this newfound evidence they’d dismiss it all and hold tighter to robotic ways of thinking. I increasingly became an outsider, an intellectual minority. The whole time I’ve been wondering what this hypnotic like way of thinking is. Could it simply be effective propaganda? The answer is that war is a force that gives us meaning. It is a longing for death that is inside us all. We decorate and justify it with patriotic and glorious gestures, but that death drive is always there. This is a work that lays bare our naked desire for death and recognition. Nobody in our generation can afford to miss out on this highly enlightening work.
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Sep 10, 2012 Doug rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: war

This book is ambitious, admirable, and moving. It falls a little short in its philosophy, abstractions, and semi-theology, but I greatly admire Hedges for attempting to make sense of war in personal, cultural, and historic terms. Most of the war examples come from Bosnia, but Hedges covered the Gulf War, El Salvador, Gaza, and so on. This book was written/published in 2002, so it is semi-prophetic as well. As it turns out, Hedges (then a NY Times reporter) railed against the invasion of Iraq and...more

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Feb 11, 2010 Stuart rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Foreign policy hobbyists, soldiers

First off, here is my (limited) background related to this subject. I've lived in one country involved in a war, Israel in 1973. The closest I got to the fighting was when I was visiting a friend near the Golan Heights. I remember waking up in the middle of the night from the explosions of bombs in fields a few hundred yards away. To say that I was filled with fear is an understatement.

That war was a "just" one from the Israeli standpoint. It resulted in the death of thousands and was emotionall...more

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May 12, 2011 Daniel Roy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, essay, politics, favorite

Hedges' lucid and haunting examination of war feels like a punch to the gut. Yet it's not so much an anti-war manifesto - Hedges downright comes out in support of war in specific circumstances, such as NATO intervention in Bosnia - as a brutally honest introspection of the forces at play during conflict.

Frankly, this book should be required reading for anyone who ever considered the fallacy of 'just war'. As much as it doesn't condemn war outright, Hedges' essay carefully deconstructs the notion...more

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Mar 20, 2013 Kathleen Brugger rated it 4 of 5 stars

War brings death and destruction, but it also can give people a sense of purpose and comradeship. Chris Hedges was a war correspondent for 15 years, and speaks from experience how at the end of a war, many people, even those who were victims of the war, feel a sense of deflation. Yes, life is safer, but it seems flat and stale, meaningless. There is an intoxication to war, an addictive adrenaline rush, a feeling of living life fully. Hedges shows how despots and presidents instigate wars to soli...more

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Apr 25, 2012 Bennett Coles rated it 4 of 5 stars

As a war correspondent in some of the nastiest conflicts of the past few decades, Chris Hedges understands well the simultaneous thrill and horror of being in the middle of a combat zone. His book, however, is a rejection of this most devastating addiction, and it is an insightful attempt to explain why people go to war, both as individuals lured into combat, and as societies seduced to the cause. Drawing upon various theatres of war he experienced, he tells sad, sometimes shocking tales of how...more

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Dec 08, 2008 Liam rated it 4 of 5 stars

So far what's captivated me is the description of how war really changes people and societies. It is interesting how the former nation of Yugoslavia went from a state dominated by the ideology of Marx, to a nation dominated by fascist nationalism on all sides. Hedges spends the majority of book comparing the dark side of war with his experiences and observations, not just in Yugoslavia, but in central America during the 1980's, aswell as Kuwait/Iraq during the gulf war. Written before the Bush a...more

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Nov 10, 2010 Jennifer Campaniolo rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book really made me question some of the beliefs I have about war that I've never questioned before, such as the US is always the good guy in war and that whomever we fight are inherently evil. It's obviously more complex than that, and Hedges explores that complexity with eloquence and the hindsight that comes from a being a thoughtful foreign war correspondent. War is hell, but it can also be addictive, Hedges says, a powerful narcotic for people looking for meaning in their lives (hence...more This book really made me question some of the beliefs I have about war that I've never questioned before, such as the US is always the good guy in war and that whomever we fight are inherently evil. It's obviously more complex than that, and Hedges explores that complexity with eloquence and the hindsight that comes from a being a thoughtful foreign war correspondent. War is hell, but it can also be addictive, Hedges says, a powerful narcotic for people looking for meaning in their lives (hence the title.)

When unthinkable acts of violence are committed in times of war, people look away, and when the war is over, they deny these atrocities or attempt to erase them from history. Part of this denial is due to the need to preserve "the sanctity of the cause that is crucial to the war effort." It's a myth that we all conspire to believe. Once soldiers see the reality of warfare they discover the truth behind that myth, and are forever changed. Killing can leave soldiers with PTSD for years after, or it can make them numb to human suffering. We need to recognize that the reality of war is far from what you and I experience at the movies. War will always be a fact of life on earth, but those who do harm should make an effort to recognize it and not bury it deep after the fact.

I didn't view this as an anti-war book, persay. In fact, I think the book gives civilians a more accurate view into the lives of the people who choose (or are drafted) to fight for their country.

I wrote down a bunch of quotes that resonated with me. Here's just one:

"As long as we think abstractly, as long as we find in patriotism and the exuberance of war our fulfillment, we will never understand those who do battle for us and how we should respond to it all. We will never discover who we are. We will fail to confront the capacity we all have for violence. And we will court our own extermination. By accepting the facile cliche that the battle under way against terrorism is a battle against evil, by easily branding those who fight us as barbarians, we, like them, refuse to acknowledge our own culpability. We ignore real injustices that have led many of those arrayed against us to their rage and despair."(less)

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Mar 01, 2013 Sarah rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, school-readin

I was really excited to read this book when I found out it was assigned for one of my classes. I was disappointed. I found it more annoying than anything else.

1) Structurally, it was a mess. He has chapter titles that ostensibly correlate with the subject of each section, but he'll stick to that topic for about a page and a half before going back to rambling on about whatever the hell he felt like writing about. It's really annoying and the disorganization made the book seem even more self-indul...more

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Jul 11, 2011 Leonardo Etcheto rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: WSJ

Very illuminating book. Author has a classical education and it shows. Helped me understand a few aspects of the human condition that I have always found fascinating: one how so many soldiers that have faced death come out of battle and all they want is R&R (booze, drugs and sex) and two how one generation fights a horrible war, does their best to forget and repel it by creating a safe haven for their families (suburbia) and the next generation is self-destructive because everything is safe...more

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Jan 12, 2013 notabattlechick rated it 3 of 5 stars

an important and thoughtful book on the meaning and experience of war. hedges writes of the grim horror of war, as well as our macabre fascination and attraction to it. it is philosophical and literary, rather than historical. it makes sweeping judgements--no doubt many of which are true--but fails to support them with other-than-anecdotal evidence. what results is a gripping, but relatively shallow meditation on how humans relate to war. it will be easily dismissed by those inclined to do so be...more

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About Chris Hedges

Christopher Lynn Hedges is an American journalist, author, and war correspondent, specializing in American and Middle Eastern politics and societies.
Hedges is known as the best-selling author of War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (2002), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.
Chris Hedges is currently a senior fellow at The Nation Institute in New York Ci...more

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Books by Chris Hedges

Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle

American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America

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Quotes from War Is a Force That Gi...

“There are always people willing to commit unspeakable human atrocity in exchange for a little power and privilege.” — 38 people liked it

“The enduring attraction of war is this: Even with its destruction and carnage it can give us what we long for in life. It can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for living.” — 17 people liked it

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War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning

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