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The Eye of War: Words and Photographs from the Front Line
A photographic history of the art war ranges from the American Civil War to Vietnam and Iraq, as seen through photographs that capture the lives of soldiers on and off the battlefield, the use of heavy machinery and artillery, the weapons of war, and the devastation that occurs in the wake of war. Reprint.
268 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
About the author
Phillip Knightley
20 books20 followersPhillip Knightley was a special correspondent for The Sunday Times for 20 years (1965-85) and one of the leaders of its Insight investigative team. He was twice named Journalist of the Year (1980 and 1988) in the British Press Awards. He and John Pilger are the only journalists ever to have won it twice.
He was also Granada Reporter of the Year (1980), Colour Magazine Writer of the Year (1982), holder of the Chef and Brewer Crime Writer’s award (1983), and the Overseas Press Club of America award for the best book on foreign affairs in 1975 (The First Casualty).
He has lectured on journalism, law, and war at the National Press Club, Canberra, ACT; the Senate, Canberra, ACT; City University, London; Manchester University, Queen Elizabeth College Oxford, Penn State, UCLA, Stanford University, California; the Inner Temple, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. He is a patron of the C.W. Bean Foundation, Canberra ACT.
His two main professional interests have been war reporting and propaganda and espionage. In more than 30 years of writing about espionage he has met most of the spy chiefs of most of the major intelligence services in the world. He dined with Sir Maurice Oldfireld, head of MI6. He lunched with Sir Dick White, head of MI5 and MI6. He corresponded with both. He lunched with Harry Rositzke, head of the CIA’s Soviet bloc division. He lunched with Lyman Kirkpatrick, the CIA’s Inspector-General. He dined with Leonid Shebarshin, head of the KGB. He lunched with Sergei Kondrashov, chief of KGB counter-intelligence. He had drinks with Markus Wolf, head of East German intelligence. He spent one week in Moscow interviewing the notorious British traitor, Kim Philby. He helped KGB general Oleg Kalugin write the outline for his book. He has met dozens of officers and agents from all sides and has written many articles on espionage. Few writers today have his depth of knowledge of the international intelligence community.
Phillip reviews non-fiction books for The Mail on Sunday, The Sunday Times, The Independent (London) and The Australian’s Review of Books and The Age (Australia). He was a judge for Canada’s Lionel Gelber Prize, the world’s biggest for the best book on international relations. He is European representative of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Washington DC.
He is involved in the the Indian literary and publishing scene and has written columns for several leading Indian newspapers and magazines.
He presented the war reporting documentary to mark the 30th anniversary of This Week; a half-hour documentary on truth for schools’ television; has reviewed the papers for BBC Breakfast TV and many What the Papers Say. He has appeared in many documentaries in Britain, Canada and Australia. He is a judge for Canada’s Lionel Gelber Prize for the year’s best book on international relations ($50,000). He is on the management committee of The Society of Authors, London.
Phillip was born in Australia but has worked most of his life in Britain. He now divides his time between Britain, Australia and India. He is married with three grown-up children and relaxes by playing tennis most days.
He was also Granada Reporter of the Year (1980), Colour Magazine Writer of the Year (1982), holder of the Chef and Brewer Crime Writer’s award (1983), and the Overseas Press Club of America award for the best book on foreign affairs in 1975 (The First Casualty).
He has lectured on journalism, law, and war at the National Press Club, Canberra, ACT; the Senate, Canberra, ACT; City University, London; Manchester University, Queen Elizabeth College Oxford, Penn State, UCLA, Stanford University, California; the Inner Temple, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. He is a patron of the C.W. Bean Foundation, Canberra ACT.
His two main professional interests have been war reporting and propaganda and espionage. In more than 30 years of writing about espionage he has met most of the spy chiefs of most of the major intelligence services in the world. He dined with Sir Maurice Oldfireld, head of MI6. He lunched with Sir Dick White, head of MI5 and MI6. He corresponded with both. He lunched with Harry Rositzke, head of the CIA’s Soviet bloc division. He lunched with Lyman Kirkpatrick, the CIA’s Inspector-General. He dined with Leonid Shebarshin, head of the KGB. He lunched with Sergei Kondrashov, chief of KGB counter-intelligence. He had drinks with Markus Wolf, head of East German intelligence. He spent one week in Moscow interviewing the notorious British traitor, Kim Philby. He helped KGB general Oleg Kalugin write the outline for his book. He has met dozens of officers and agents from all sides and has written many articles on espionage. Few writers today have his depth of knowledge of the international intelligence community.
Phillip reviews non-fiction books for The Mail on Sunday, The Sunday Times, The Independent (London) and The Australian’s Review of Books and The Age (Australia). He was a judge for Canada’s Lionel Gelber Prize, the world’s biggest for the best book on international relations. He is European representative of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Washington DC.
He is involved in the the Indian literary and publishing scene and has written columns for several leading Indian newspapers and magazines.
He presented the war reporting documentary to mark the 30th anniversary of This Week; a half-hour documentary on truth for schools’ television; has reviewed the papers for BBC Breakfast TV and many What the Papers Say. He has appeared in many documentaries in Britain, Canada and Australia. He is a judge for Canada’s Lionel Gelber Prize for the year’s best book on international relations ($50,000). He is on the management committee of The Society of Authors, London.
Phillip was born in Australia but has worked most of his life in Britain. He now divides his time between Britain, Australia and India. He is married with three grown-up children and relaxes by playing tennis most days.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 5, 2026
3.5 Stars!
I found the earlier photos in here a little hard to get excited about. Although many work well as insights into bygone wars, which were rarely or scarcely covered you also have to allow for how much propaganda and deception would have been at play. Of course so many of these older photos are now known or largely believed to have been altered or staged to some extent, even if they do contain a hard truth at their core.
The truth is that so many of the older photos are actually quite dull and uneventful and just because these people had a camera didn’t mean they were particularly skilful with it, any more than today when you get countless morons uploading unhelpful, shaky footage of something significant. This reminds you that you can run the risk of confusing age for quality.
I suppose in keeping with the technological advancements, the quality and variety really begins to pick up with the coverage of WWI, where the depth and variation increase along with more people having wider access to better and more affordable equipment etc. And its during the wars of the 20th century where this really comes into its own and the quality and intensity begins to shine through.
Some of the more striking moments are actually found in the journalistic excerpts with a number of confronting experiences revealing the true depth and impact whilst still leaving much to the imagination too.
April 11, 2009
War and Documentation by the Unflinching Camera
THE EYE OF WAR is a haunting collection of scenes from the battlefields of over 150 years of wars throughout the world. In John Keegan's Introduction to this portfolio he presents a thorough survey of the effects of war on the soldiers and the targets and explains how both are victims of the war machine. What makes this collection so important, so visceral, and so heartbreaking is that it follows wars along with the invention of the camera. Before the camera came into being in the early 19th century battles were the subject of painters and sketchers. But in 1855 the 'new' camera was carried onto the battlefields and suddenly the 'romanticized version' of war as seen in paintings evaporated: these are moments captured during the heat of battle and the shocking aftermath of the devastation war creates.
Writer/commentator/editor Phillip Knightley opens the book with the first known use of the camera at battle: the Crimean war of 1854 (Britain and France declared war on Russia) is depicted by near still lifes of soldiers in uniform and landscapes of the war. From there the photographs become more graphic with images from the Third Opium War, the Indian mutiny, and the American Civil War. Many of Matthew Brady's famous photographs are placed by excerpts of writers who observed the tragedy. The book then moves through the Imperial Expansion with images from the colonial wars in Africa, frontier wars, and the Spanish-American war that span the latter half of the 19th century. At the turn of the century that Knightly ominously terms the period 'Rehearsals for Armageddon 1900 - 1914' photographs and commentary from the Boer War, the Russo-Japanese War, and the Mexican Revolution lead into the First World War and the collection gains momentum: battlefields are spread before us in double-page form alongside intimate images of individuals both in battle and on the home front all weeping over the destruction of years of architectural history as well as lives.
'A Short Intermission 1918 - 39' follows the Russian revolution, Italy's invasion of Abyssinia and the Spanish Civil War before the harrowing images of World War II fill the pages. Famous and anonymous photographs force the reader to recall the dichotomy between the pacifists and warmongers and the resulting images are terrifying to visit. Knightley then covers the period from 1945 - 1994 under the title Independence Wars - Korea, Indochina, Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Latin America, the Falklands, and Africa - and for those of us who have lived through these wars (particularly the heinous Vietnam War) these images are difficult to view, as well they should be. Photographers focused more on the horrors of the ruin of human life and the effects on soldiers torn by the atrocities they viewed daily.
The book closes with 'Conflicts of Faith 1948 - 2003', covering Israel's Independence War, the Yom Kippur War, as well as the wars in Algeria, Suez, Lebanon, Chechnya, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and into the Iran-Iraq war and Gulf War to the present day continuing Iraq War. If any reader has misgivings about the 'correctness' of the Iraq War these images and comments should alter perception. In a book filled with 200 images in both black and white and color perhaps one of the most touching is a photograph of The Sarajevo String Quartet performing in the ruins of the National Library in 1994. It sums up the absurdity of war and the indomitable spirit of those who survive to go on. One can almost hear the music of Messiaen's 'Quartet for the End of Time' recalling the Holocaust of years earlier. Books such as this belong in the libraries of all those who care about the need for peace. This is a singularly powerful statement that should be re-visited often. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp
THE EYE OF WAR is a haunting collection of scenes from the battlefields of over 150 years of wars throughout the world. In John Keegan's Introduction to this portfolio he presents a thorough survey of the effects of war on the soldiers and the targets and explains how both are victims of the war machine. What makes this collection so important, so visceral, and so heartbreaking is that it follows wars along with the invention of the camera. Before the camera came into being in the early 19th century battles were the subject of painters and sketchers. But in 1855 the 'new' camera was carried onto the battlefields and suddenly the 'romanticized version' of war as seen in paintings evaporated: these are moments captured during the heat of battle and the shocking aftermath of the devastation war creates.
Writer/commentator/editor Phillip Knightley opens the book with the first known use of the camera at battle: the Crimean war of 1854 (Britain and France declared war on Russia) is depicted by near still lifes of soldiers in uniform and landscapes of the war. From there the photographs become more graphic with images from the Third Opium War, the Indian mutiny, and the American Civil War. Many of Matthew Brady's famous photographs are placed by excerpts of writers who observed the tragedy. The book then moves through the Imperial Expansion with images from the colonial wars in Africa, frontier wars, and the Spanish-American war that span the latter half of the 19th century. At the turn of the century that Knightly ominously terms the period 'Rehearsals for Armageddon 1900 - 1914' photographs and commentary from the Boer War, the Russo-Japanese War, and the Mexican Revolution lead into the First World War and the collection gains momentum: battlefields are spread before us in double-page form alongside intimate images of individuals both in battle and on the home front all weeping over the destruction of years of architectural history as well as lives.
'A Short Intermission 1918 - 39' follows the Russian revolution, Italy's invasion of Abyssinia and the Spanish Civil War before the harrowing images of World War II fill the pages. Famous and anonymous photographs force the reader to recall the dichotomy between the pacifists and warmongers and the resulting images are terrifying to visit. Knightley then covers the period from 1945 - 1994 under the title Independence Wars - Korea, Indochina, Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Latin America, the Falklands, and Africa - and for those of us who have lived through these wars (particularly the heinous Vietnam War) these images are difficult to view, as well they should be. Photographers focused more on the horrors of the ruin of human life and the effects on soldiers torn by the atrocities they viewed daily.
The book closes with 'Conflicts of Faith 1948 - 2003', covering Israel's Independence War, the Yom Kippur War, as well as the wars in Algeria, Suez, Lebanon, Chechnya, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and into the Iran-Iraq war and Gulf War to the present day continuing Iraq War. If any reader has misgivings about the 'correctness' of the Iraq War these images and comments should alter perception. In a book filled with 200 images in both black and white and color perhaps one of the most touching is a photograph of The Sarajevo String Quartet performing in the ruins of the National Library in 1994. It sums up the absurdity of war and the indomitable spirit of those who survive to go on. One can almost hear the music of Messiaen's 'Quartet for the End of Time' recalling the Holocaust of years earlier. Books such as this belong in the libraries of all those who care about the need for peace. This is a singularly powerful statement that should be re-visited often. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp
Want to Read
January 18, 2011dari Gieb, baru ditemukan lagi di bawah tumpukan buku-buku lain :D
May 2, 2017
intense and chilling. the real torn faces of war. this is no propaganda book, nor is it exploitive . human. informing. excellent. the quotes are unique and add a lot to it.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews