A review by gadicohen93
War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges

4.0

Listened to it so maybe did not absorb as much as I should've. This was well-written, more a meditation on war, nationalism, the corrosive and deadly power of national narratives. There is wisdom in the author's processing of so many conflict zones, the many references to previous writers, the observations of so many different encounters. There were some harrowing details — the Israeli soldiers luring Gazan children to shoot them was a particular anecdote that I remember. The writer clearly had spent a lot of time in the Balkans, which felt like the most in-depth perspective. I overall align with the writer's viewpoint on war and conflict but also don't know how substantial the book is — it doesn't dig too deeply into the roots of any one conflict, and the philosophical musings on the psychological drive behind war may have suffered as a result, feeling somewhat intangible and drifting, though maybe that's sheerly because much of war seems like an irrational riot of nihilism.