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What Every Person Should Know About War
by
Chris Hedges
Acclaimed New York Times journalist and author Chris Hedges offers a critical -- and fascinating -- lesson in the dangerous realities of our age: a stark look at the effects of war on combatants. Utterly lacking in rhetoric or dogma, this manual relies instead on bare fact, frank description, and a spare question-and-answer format. Hedges allows U.S. military documentation...more
ebook, 192 pages
Published
November 1st 2007
by Free Press
(first published June 3rd 2003)
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Jun 09, 2007
nicebutnubbly
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
anyone
Shelves:
non-fiction
A tiny book, but brilliant. Halfway through I was wishing I had the funding to buy thousands of copies and pass them out at high schools to counter military recruitment. Totally unbiased, and written in a simple Q & A format, this is a quietly damning picture of some of the realities of war, based on strong research, much of it done by the military themselves. My only caveat is that much of it is pretty specific to American military situations. The sections on wounds and weapons made me want...more
Sep 05, 2009
David Park
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
military-reference,
library
A truly informative book on the reality of war and its effects on people. The book is a quick read and incredibly interesting, with the text in a question-and-answer format. I found the arc of chapters clever as well, following the progression of a person from joining the military to questions of combat, wounds and injuries, dying, and life after the war.
The sections which caught my attention was how people adapt to combat. The vast majority of people do not like to kill other people. It's diffi...more
The sections which caught my attention was how people adapt to combat. The vast majority of people do not like to kill other people. It's diffi...more
Jeffrey R. Santos
Book review on “What Every Person Should Know About War”
By “Chris Hedges”
“What Every Person Should Know About War” is a small book with a lot of plain good, useful
information that could be beneficial to any type of reader. This book shows strong content in
general areas like how it feels like to die, and it answers them from the point of view of a soldier
and even medical statistics to back up the claims written. In a way, this small book tackles
interesting questions from man...more
Book review on “What Every Person Should Know About War”
By “Chris Hedges”
“What Every Person Should Know About War” is a small book with a lot of plain good, useful
information that could be beneficial to any type of reader. This book shows strong content in
general areas like how it feels like to die, and it answers them from the point of view of a soldier
and even medical statistics to back up the claims written. In a way, this small book tackles
interesting questions from man...more
This is a very informative work, primarily useful as a reference tool or for an introduction or overview of some basic issues pertaining to war, primarily from the viewpoint of an American soldier. It will be shocking to the unitiated, but there is nothing unfamiliar to anyone who has either experienced or studied war in its reality. I do wish that many of the statistics were up-to-date, and find that his body counts are generally much lower or much more conservative for many wars than most scho...more
Mar 26, 2011
Eric Piotrowski
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
nonfiction,
war
A solid and intriguing collection of facts, with profuse footnotes providing sources and further reading. The style here is very straightforward, written with the intent of neither celebrating nor fear-mongering the realities of warfare. Obviously Mr. Hedges knows whereof he speaks, from a journalistic point of view, and he's collected some essential information for people (especially young people) to know.
I wish there were a little more emphasis on recent military activity; much of the discussi...more
I wish there were a little more emphasis on recent military activity; much of the discussi...more
Ok, in all honesty I just aggressively skimmed this after reading the intro and understanding what Hedges wanted to accomplish with this. Chris Hedges is, to me, one of today's most gifted and pragmatic cultural philosophers through personal experience, and the intro to this book (published 10 years ago) reverberates very strongly today, and probably will forever, because as he notes:
"Modern industrial warfare is largely impersonal. The effects of these powerful weapons and explosives on human b...more
"Modern industrial warfare is largely impersonal. The effects of these powerful weapons and explosives on human b...more
Apr 13, 2011
P.J. Sullivan
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
everyone
Shelves:
nonfiction
A veteran war correspondent, Chris Hedges knows war at first hand and sees no end to it. War is “an inevitable part of the human condition,” he laments. The world has been at peace a mere eight percent of recorded human history.
He discusses the horrible death tolls, the weapons used, the odds of dying or being wounded, the odds of suffering psychological damage. What it feels like to be shot. What it feels like to shoot another human being. Why people enlist. Daily life in the military: boredom...more
He discusses the horrible death tolls, the weapons used, the odds of dying or being wounded, the odds of suffering psychological damage. What it feels like to be shot. What it feels like to shoot another human being. Why people enlist. Daily life in the military: boredom...more
It is exactly what the title says. I was inspired by an earlier book written after the useless carnage of WWI but withdrawn by its author as WWII began to avoid an adverse impact on recruitment. Both books had the same format, question and answer, and same intention. That intention was to lay out the cold facts about existence as a solider in combat without philosophical, ideological, or political content. Everyone who has not been in actual combat (EVEN THOSE WHO HAVE COMPLETED EXTENSIVE TRAINI...more
That's why the veterans are the true pacifists.
Watching his video interview, I thought the author of the book, Chris Hodges, to be a scholar, but he has an experience in the front line of the war as a journalist for more than 20 years.
I think this book is a very good review of the experience in the front line, especially for Japanese, who know nothing about war. Indeed, Japan has not experienced war for 67 years after WW2.
My old man was a WW2 veteran. They might had sad experience....
Watching his video interview, I thought the author of the book, Chris Hodges, to be a scholar, but he has an experience in the front line of the war as a journalist for more than 20 years.
I think this book is a very good review of the experience in the front line, especially for Japanese, who know nothing about war. Indeed, Japan has not experienced war for 67 years after WW2.
My old man was a WW2 veteran. They might had sad experience....
an interesting book, but somewhat shallow and outdated. it seeks to answer common questions that might come to someone who is either thinking about joining the military or who might be facing combat. answers are short and to the point but sometimes lack depth. the section on PTSD seems to be particularly shallow and outdated.
Not an overt anti-war polemic, rather a straightforward presentation of facts whose cumulative effect is (not surprisingly) disturbing. Certainly (in case you didn't already know) war should not be undertaken lightly and the people who can persuaded to go should be getting much better taken care of when they return.
The stupidity of war hit me up the side of my head. Chris Hedges transcends the emotional tripe used to propel the troops "over the top" and into the gun sights, and tells a practical story of death, pain, destruction and despair.
Chris Hedges answers questions about what it's like to be in the military in a Q&A format. In the introduction, he explains that most people who enlist have a false idea of what military life is like, that their conception about war has been shaped by movies and stories that glorify it. He never states that he thinks war is evil or that it's "never the answer," but he makes it clear--and I agree--that potential enlistees should know exactly what they're getting into when they sign up to go t...more
Oct 26, 2011
Kcastro
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
bathroom-reader,
non-fiction
Christopher is planning to join the National Guard and I have questions. I couldn't read all of it. Sometimes it is better to not know.
No rhetoric or dogma - just the cruel, terrifying facts about war. Everyone really does need to read this.
Answers many questions I had and didn't know I had about war.
Not for the faint of heart, but quite good.
You may not know if you haven't read it.
War myths dispelled.
Library
Meh.
A quick, easy read, this book explores in question-and-answer format what a soldier might experience upon enlistment, during and after war, including what happens if the soldier is injured or dies. It is objective, well-documented, and has an extensive bibliography. Indeed, it truly is What Every Person Should Know About War.
I enjoyed the way this book was written in a question-and-answer format, with straightforward answers to questions a soldier or potential soldier might ask. Recommended.
Most of it was fairly commonsensical, other parts too minutia-etical, so in the end it was boringesquical.
It'll completely change your opinion on war.
This is an amazing book. Straight ahead Q and A format. Reads a lot like an FAQ on a web site. Blunt and useful infomation. I think I was aware of most of this, but I think many will be surprised. Written in 2003, so we miss a lot of info from the last decade of war. Still it goes back to WWI, so I think many things never change. But much has changed as Naomi Klein talks about in Shock Doctrine.
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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
More about Chris Hedges...
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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“Few of us can hold on to our real selves long enough to discover the momentous truths about ourselves and this whirling earth to which we cling. This is especially true of men [and women] in war. The great god Mars tries to blind us when we enter his realm, and when we leave he gives us a generous cup of the waters of Lethe to drink." -- J. Glenn Gray, "The Warriors: Reflections of Men in Battle”
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