WAR AND PEACEKEEPING

A veteran journalist looks back on decades of covering wars and peacekeeping missions around the world.

Bell, who has worked in more than 120 countries, lays out his resume in the introduction. “In a life of accidental episodes,” he writes, “I have been a soldier, a war reporter, a Member of Parliament, a UNICEF ambassador, a battlefield target, a war crimes witness, a writer, a poet, an ethics adviser, a lecturer and an incorrigible wanderer.” The book is a loosely linked set of essays on the lessons gathered from that vast experience, and his subjects include his time peacekeeping with the British army in Cyprus, reporting on the Croatian civil war, and observations on U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, whom he clearly admires, and Donald Trump, whom he does not. Bell also offers his views on land mines, which have become a scourge lingering in many countries after their local wars have ended, and the vicious civil wars in various African nations. In addition to the inevitable power of his eyewitness account of the history he has observed, the author brings to each of his topics an enviable (and often caustic) turn of phrase—e.g., in 1994, the U.N. headquarters in Bosnia was “a hotbed of cold feet,” and Prime Minister Boris Johnson “led the charge to the cliff edge” in his management of Brexit, which Bell considers a disaster in the making. The author is particularly vehement in his scorn for incompetent and dishonest reporting, especially when the reporter is more interested in building personal celebrity than in getting the story right. At every point, Bell offers colorful anecdotes and glimpses of real people, famous and otherwise, not all of whom are by any calculation admirable.

An engaging read by a writer whose front seat to modern history is matched by his sharp prose and forthright opinions.