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  • War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning

  • Written by: Chris Hedges
  • Narrated by: Chris Hedges
  • Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
  • 5.0 out of 5 stars (15 ratings)

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War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning

Written by: Chris Hedges
Narrated by: Chris Hedges
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Publisher's Summary

As a veteran war correspondent, Chris Hedges has survived ambushes in Central America, imprisonment in Sudan, and a beating by Saudi military police. He has seen children murdered for sport in Gaza and petty thugs elevated into war heroes in the Balkans. Hedges, who is also a former divinity student, has seen war at its worst and knows too well that to those who pass through it, war can be exhilarating and even addictive: "It gives us purpose, meaning, a reason for living."

Drawing on his own experience and on the literature of combat from Homer to Michael Herr, Hedges shows how war seduces not just those on the front lines but entire societies, corrupting politics, destroying culture, and perverting the most basic human desires. Mixing hard-nosed realism with profound moral and philosophical insight, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning is a work of terrible power and redemptive clarity whose truths have never been more necessary.

©2007 Chris Hedges (P)2007 Tantor Media Inc.

What the critics say

"A brilliant, thoughtful, timely, and unsettling book....Abounds with Hedges' harrowing and terribly moving eyewitness accounts...Powerful and informative." ( The New York Times Book Review)
"The best kind of war journalism: It is bitterly poetic and ruthlessly philosophical. It sends out a powerful message to people contemplating the escalation of the 'war against terrorism'." ( Los Angeles Times)

What listeners say about War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning

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A Necessary Read!

Brutal, honest and written by one of the most genuine and trustworthy journalists of our time!

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A revelation.

Hedges writes from experience. He is not a professor at a desk writing from archives. He has witnessed the horror of war. But he does not judge those who fall prey to its seductions as much as he tries to help us understand the craziness. An amazing read. Courage, compassion, precision, and insight. Anybody wanting to think about war should listen to him. He reads it well — after all, he wrote it.

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