War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning - Paperback

by Chris Hedges (Author)

From a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author, an unflinching and close-up look at war: its intoxicating allure, its gruesome realities, and the grandeur it exposes about humanity.

"A brilliant, thoughtful, timely, and unsettling book." --New York Times

Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction

General George S. Patton famously said, "Compared to war all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance. God, I do love it so!" Though Patton was a notoriously single-minded general, it is nonetheless a sad fact that war gives meaning to many lives, a fact with which we have become familiar now that America is once again engaged in a military conflict. War is an enticing elixir. It gives us purpose, resolve, a cause. It allows us to be noble.

Chris Hedges of The New York Times has seen war up close--in the Balkans, the Middle East, and Central America--and he has been troubled by what he has seen: friends, enemies, colleagues, and strangers intoxicated and even addicted to war's heady brew.

In War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, he tackles the ugly truths about humanity's love affair with war, offering a sophisticated, nuanced, intelligent meditation on the subject that is also gritty, powerful, and unforgettable.

Author Biography

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. He was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times, where he was Middle East bureau chief and Balkan bureau chief. He is a New York Times bestselling author of sixteen books, including Empire of Illusion and American Fascists. He holds a master of divinity from Harvard University and lives in Princeton, New Jersey.