Given his background, Chivers certainly did not set out to write a book emphasizing the foolishness of American actions in...
Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times journalist and former Marine Corps infantry officer Chivers (The Gun, 2010, etc.) offers a chilling account of failed American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq through the searing experiences of six fighters.
After 9/11, the author risked his personal safety to experience combat up close as a journalist in Afghanistan and Iraq, making excellent use of the observational powers he honed as a Marine during the earlier Persian Gulf War. Chivers ably relates the details of the U.S. military incursions into those two countries based on the thinking of the six combatants featured in the narrative. Each of the men is at the center of at least two chapters out of 13, including the epilogue. By returning to individual sagas throughout the book, the author captures not only isolated moments, but also evolving thoughts as U.S. military and civilian commanders make countless mistakes in their goals and their tactics. One of the six main characters is dead; the other five suffered physical and/or psychological injuries during their service. Now no longer in combat, the protagonists were candid with Chivers about the worth of their military missions. Sometimes bitterness emerged, but more often puzzlement, as the combatants tried to work through why they and their fellow troops were fighting elusive enemies for no clear purpose. At the beginning of each chapter, the author, who shatters much conventional wisdom about the conflicts, provides a transitional summary of shifting U.S. priorities between fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan or sometimes both at once. A central dilemma for noncombatant policymakers has been deciding whether to withdraw, thus creating geographical regions for the terrorists to consolidate, or remain, thus encouraging new terrorist recruits to enlist against the hated Americans.
Given his background, Chivers certainly did not set out to write a book emphasizing the foolishness of American actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. But that is the story that emerged from his painstaking, courageous reporting, and readers will be thankful for his work.Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4516-7664-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
A valiant effort to explain and make peace with war’s awesome consequences for human beings.
A manual for soldiers or anyone interested in what can happen to mind, body and spirit in the extreme circumstances of war.
Decorated Vietnam veteran Marlantes is also the author of a bestselling novel (Matterhorn, 2010), a Yale graduate and Rhodes scholar. His latest book reflects both his erudition and his battle-hardness, taking readers from the Temple of Mars and Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey into the hell of combat and its grisly aftermath. That Marlantes has undertaken such a project implies his acceptance of war as a permanent fact of human life. We go to war, he says, “reluctantly and sadly” to eliminate an evil, just as one must kill a mad dog, “because it is a loathsome task that a conscious person sometimes has to do.” He believes volunteers rather than conscripts make the best soldiers, and he accepts that the young, who thrill at adventure and thrive on adrenaline, should be war’s heavy lifters. But apologizing for war is certainly not one of the strengths, or even aims, of the book. Rather, Marlantes seeks to prepare warriors for the psychic wounds they may endure in the name of causes they may not fully comprehend. In doing that, he also seeks to explain to nonsoldiers (particularly policymakers who would send soldiers to war) the violence that war enacts on the whole being. Marlantes believes our modern states fail where “primitive” societies succeeded in preparing warriors for battle and healing their psychic wounds when they return. He proposes the development of rituals to practice during wartime, to solemnly pay tribute to the terrible costs of war as they are exacted, rather than expecting our soldiers to deal with them privately when they leave the service. He believes these rituals, in absolving warriors of the guilt they will and probably should feel for being expected to violate all of the sacred rules of civilization, could help slow the epidemic of post-traumatic stress disorder among veterans.
A valiant effort to explain and make peace with war’s awesome consequences for human beings.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8021-1992-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: July 31, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
Despite the whopping length, there's not a wasted word in this superb, swiftly moving narrative, which brings new and...
A great, troubled, and, it seems, overlooked president receives his due from the Pulitzer-winning historian/biographer McCullough (Truman, 1992, etc.).
John Adams, to gauge by the letters and diaries from which McCullough liberally quotes, did not exactly go out of his way to assume a leadership role in the tumultuous years of the American Revolution, though he was always “ambitious to excel.” Neither, however, did he shy from what he perceived to be a divinely inspired historical necessity; he took considerable personal risks in spreading the American colonists’ rebellion across his native Massachusetts. Adams gained an admirable reputation for fearlessness and for devotion not only to his cause but also to his beloved wife Abigail. After the Revolution, though he was quick to yield to the rebellion's military leader, George Washington, part of the reason that the New England states enjoyed influence in a government dominated by Virginians was the force of Adams's character. His lifelong nemesis, who tested that character in many ways, was also one of his greatest friends: Thomas Jefferson, who differed from Adams in almost every important respect. McCullough depicts Jefferson as lazy, a spendthrift, always in debt and always in trouble, whereas Adams never rested and never spent a penny without good reason, a holdover from the comparative poverty of his youth. Despite their sometimes vicious political battles (in a bafflingly complex environment that McCullough carefully deconstructs), the two shared a love of books, learning, and revolutionary idealism, and it is one of those wonderful symmetries of history that both died on the same day, the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. While McCullough never misses an episode in Adams's long and often troubled life, he includes enough biographical material on Jefferson that this can be considered two biographies for the price of one—which explains some of its portliness.
Despite the whopping length, there's not a wasted word in this superb, swiftly moving narrative, which brings new and overdue honor to a Founding Father.Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-684-81363-7
Page Count: 736
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2001
IN THE NEWS
PERSPECTIVES
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
