Black Hearts
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Review
First serial ran in Guardian Weekend on Saturday in a fantastic five page spread. --Guardian Weekend
'There have been many books about the Iraq war, but this is an unusually gripping one... Frederick's book has more than a little in common with In Cold Blood, Truman Capote's classic account of another family murder... This is a shocking story, vividly told, which helps to explain why the Middle East is so ungrateful for western efforts to liberate it.' -- Max Hastings, Sunday Times
'There have been many books about the Iraq war, but this is an unusually gripping one . . . Black Hearts has more than a little in common with In Cold Blood, Truman Capote's classic account of [a] family murder . . . a shocking story, vividly told'
--Max Hastings, Sunday Times
'Black Hearts is an exceptionally good book. It is rare to find something so interesting and detailed, but at the same time both exciting and humbling. Statements and sources are carefully indexed almost in the style of an academic text (it is indeed an impressive study of the causes of war crimes), yet the descriptions of combat are gripping, and doubly so as you are always aware that they are told from detailed interviews with the actual participants. Band of Brothers is dull by comparison...I would consider the book almost essential reading for section through to platoon commanders, and highly recommended from there up the chain of command. It will certainly make you examine your own leadership style and cause you to pause for thought on whether the crimes at the heart of the book could actually have been committed by your soldiers under similar circumstances.' --ARRSE - Army Rumour Service website
'Black Hearts is the best book by far about the Iraq war - a rare combination of cold truth and warm compassion.' --Guardian
'Black Hearts is the best book by far about the Iraq war - a rare combination of cold truth and warm compassion.' --Guardian Review
`It's Sunday evening and across the street is Charlotte Square and the tents of the book festival, where Frederick will read from his new book the next day. It's called Black Hearts and if you read one book on Iraq this autumn, I'd suggest leaving aside Tony Blair's memoir, A Journey. By all means make a donation to the Royal British Legion, but save your pounds, 13 of them, for Frederick's account.'
--The Scotsman
'This is a gripping but horrifying read, told with detachment; proof yet that war is hell ... Without anyway of justifying them, Frederick's book makes you understand how men commit war crimes.' --Irish Times
'A dramatic initiation into the gruesome theatre of modern war, a parable of courage and cowardice that demolishes the clichéd rhetoric of heroic battles.' --Gulf News (U.A.E.)
'Intense ... Fast-paced and highly detailed, this volume is difficult to put down despite wanting to look away' --Publisher's Weekly (`Pick of the Week')
'Meticulous ... demands to be read' --Washington Post
'Frederick acts for us as Dante's Virgil, only instead of a descent into Hell proper, he takes us into the Triangle of Death.. We, as readers, are invited not only to empathize with members of the 1-502, but to vicariously experience the exhaustion, the frustration, the sense of abandonment, the anger, the rebellion, and occasionally, the palpable fear that members of the battalion experienced daily for a year' --Military Review
'Frederick . . . Tells the complex story in raw, compassionate and exact detail. Black Hearts should be taught at West Point, Annapolis, and wherever else the styles and consequences of combat leadership are studied' --Huffington Post
'This is a powerful and compelling read. From the point of view of a military professional, the picture Frederick paints of 1/502 - based on trial testimony and interviews - is amazing... Black Hearts is highly recommended.' --The Literary Review
'There have been many books about the Iraq war, but this is an unusually gripping one... Frederick's book has more than a little in common with In Cold Blood, Truman Capote's classic account of another family murder... This is a shocking story, vividly told, which helps to explain why the Middle East is so ungrateful for western efforts to liberate it.' -- Max Hastings, Sunday Times
'There have been many books about the Iraq war, but this is an unusually gripping one . . . Black Hearts has more than a little in common with In Cold Blood, Truman Capote's classic account of [a] family murder . . . a shocking story, vividly told'
--Max Hastings, Sunday Times
'Black Hearts is an exceptionally good book. It is rare to find something so interesting and detailed, but at the same time both exciting and humbling. Statements and sources are carefully indexed almost in the style of an academic text (it is indeed an impressive study of the causes of war crimes), yet the descriptions of combat are gripping, and doubly so as you are always aware that they are told from detailed interviews with the actual participants. Band of Brothers is dull by comparison...I would consider the book almost essential reading for section through to platoon commanders, and highly recommended from there up the chain of command. It will certainly make you examine your own leadership style and cause you to pause for thought on whether the crimes at the heart of the book could actually have been committed by your soldiers under similar circumstances.' --ARRSE - Army Rumour Service website
'Black Hearts is the best book by far about the Iraq war - a rare combination of cold truth and warm compassion.' --Guardian
'Black Hearts is the best book by far about the Iraq war - a rare combination of cold truth and warm compassion.' --Guardian Review
`It's Sunday evening and across the street is Charlotte Square and the tents of the book festival, where Frederick will read from his new book the next day. It's called Black Hearts and if you read one book on Iraq this autumn, I'd suggest leaving aside Tony Blair's memoir, A Journey. By all means make a donation to the Royal British Legion, but save your pounds, 13 of them, for Frederick's account.'
--The Scotsman
'This is a gripping but horrifying read, told with detachment; proof yet that war is hell ... Without anyway of justifying them, Frederick's book makes you understand how men commit war crimes.' --Irish Times
'A dramatic initiation into the gruesome theatre of modern war, a parable of courage and cowardice that demolishes the clichéd rhetoric of heroic battles.' --Gulf News (U.A.E.)
'Intense ... Fast-paced and highly detailed, this volume is difficult to put down despite wanting to look away' --Publisher's Weekly (`Pick of the Week')
'Meticulous ... demands to be read' --Washington Post
'Frederick acts for us as Dante's Virgil, only instead of a descent into Hell proper, he takes us into the Triangle of Death.. We, as readers, are invited not only to empathize with members of the 1-502, but to vicariously experience the exhaustion, the frustration, the sense of abandonment, the anger, the rebellion, and occasionally, the palpable fear that members of the battalion experienced daily for a year' --Military Review
'Frederick . . . Tells the complex story in raw, compassionate and exact detail. Black Hearts should be taught at West Point, Annapolis, and wherever else the styles and consequences of combat leadership are studied' --Huffington Post
'This is a powerful and compelling read. From the point of view of a military professional, the picture Frederick paints of 1/502 - based on trial testimony and interviews - is amazing... Black Hearts is highly recommended.' --The Literary Review
Product Description
Quite possibly the defining book about the Iraq War, a masterpiece of reportage that reads like a thriller
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
29 of 30 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Black Hearts is the most extraordinary work of nonfiction. Jim Frederick tells the story of the entire deployment of a group of soldiers in the triangle of death who suffered the most terrible losses and were under attack almost every day. They lived outside the wire in "the most dangerous place at the most dangerous time" in Iraq. Black Hearts is not just for those who like war books, it's a book for anyone who wants to read about characters, about human character, how it is tested, about how war really is (some passages are difficult to read, so raw and real), how humans interact, how they behave under the kind of pressure most of us will never have to suffer. This book is for anyone who wants to read a beautifully crafted tale, sensitively and fairly handled. You feel as if you were there, watching the soldiers the whole time, willing them to step back two inches, a step that would spare the insurgent a clean shot; urging leaders to choose this course of action, not the one that results in yet more losses, with little overall gain; urging those who ended up committing the worst crimes of the war to hold back, to dig deeper, find the good in their character, to spare the innocent Iraqis their lives, their brothers-in-arms the inevitable tainted-by-association. Black Hearts is about leadership, about friendship, about the extraordinary tests on the character of a person, why those who endure the same things cope, or don't. It's about why some people choose to behave the way they do. (The chapter on the rape of the girl and murder of her family by 4 soldiers --all now in jail in the US -- is extremely difficult to stomach.) There's nothing Hollywood -- though it would make the most incredible movie actually -- or sanitized about Black Hearts, so real are the characters and images conveyed. We need to know this is what war is without, thankfully, not debating the been-there-done-that pros and cons of going into this particular war. This is the best and most emotive book, not just war book but book, I have read in years. Some scenes made me weep openly. It has changed the way I think about men at war, about character, good and bad, right and wrong, how not every leader is a good one, not every soldier is a hero -- a point Frederick makes very well, -- mostly because soldiers and leaders are human, too. But it also makes you realize how an army needs to sort those who can lead from those who obviously cannot, that is those whose errors in judgment have catastrophic consequences, those whose orders decide whether people live or die and, for those that live, how they live, how they cope, how they work within the larger group, how they rebuild their lives outside the wire, inside, if they're lucky enough, and how they deal when they return home. This is stuff we need to know and think about. It would be an amazing book were it fiction. The fact it is not makes it all the more riveting and shocking. Frederick is an extremely talented writer. I absolutely recommend Black Hearts to all Amazon customers. (There are also more great reviews on Amazon.com and the New York Times called it "extraordinary" and "riveting", too.)
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Iraq has almost become a forgotten conflict in this day and age of 24 hour news channels as its too easy to ignore the life and death stories that seem to run on a constant loop and sadly become little more than 'background noise'. I fully appreciate that those with family and friends in the armed forces will no doubt take exception to that comment and I can assure you that no offence is intended but I do think that I speak for many people in the street.
Reading this book brought the whole situation back to the forefront of my mind and more importantly gave a valuable insight into just why the mighty American war machine is - on the whole - failing. Whilst the book sets out to investigate and comment upon a specific horrific war crime committed by a small group of American soldiers, and again I dont not want to underplay the seriousness of the crime in question, for me the incident almost became secondary to the broader topic addressed by the author. What comes across loud and clear is that due to the escalation in conflicts across the globe the services are facing a shortfall in personnel and are being forced to recruit men and women who quite frankly are clearly unsuitable for the role. This situation is compounded be the fact that the leadership and support provided to the armed forces is at best lacking, at worst downright none existant. While I can understand that modern warfare relies heavily on technological advancements the book for me at least hammered home that while billion dollar gadgets have their place they simply cannot and do not replace the need to have well trained, well equiped and well lead soldiers on the ground. I am getting very much into the realms of dangerous oversimplification here but I feel strongly that if only a fraction of the immense defence spending committed by the US was redirected into grass roots recruitemnt and training of high caliber professional soldiers then not only would crimes such as the rape and murder at the centre of this book be eliminated but it would also bring conflicts such as Iraq to a quicker end which ultimately must be everyones goal.
A well written and well researched book which increased my sympathy and understanding of those on all sides of the Iraq situation immeasurably. At the end of the book I was left with a genuine sense of pity for all of the soldiers featured and interviewed and an overriding feeling that the sitaution could have been easily avoided.
Reading this book brought the whole situation back to the forefront of my mind and more importantly gave a valuable insight into just why the mighty American war machine is - on the whole - failing. Whilst the book sets out to investigate and comment upon a specific horrific war crime committed by a small group of American soldiers, and again I dont not want to underplay the seriousness of the crime in question, for me the incident almost became secondary to the broader topic addressed by the author. What comes across loud and clear is that due to the escalation in conflicts across the globe the services are facing a shortfall in personnel and are being forced to recruit men and women who quite frankly are clearly unsuitable for the role. This situation is compounded be the fact that the leadership and support provided to the armed forces is at best lacking, at worst downright none existant. While I can understand that modern warfare relies heavily on technological advancements the book for me at least hammered home that while billion dollar gadgets have their place they simply cannot and do not replace the need to have well trained, well equiped and well lead soldiers on the ground. I am getting very much into the realms of dangerous oversimplification here but I feel strongly that if only a fraction of the immense defence spending committed by the US was redirected into grass roots recruitemnt and training of high caliber professional soldiers then not only would crimes such as the rape and murder at the centre of this book be eliminated but it would also bring conflicts such as Iraq to a quicker end which ultimately must be everyones goal.
A well written and well researched book which increased my sympathy and understanding of those on all sides of the Iraq situation immeasurably. At the end of the book I was left with a genuine sense of pity for all of the soldiers featured and interviewed and an overriding feeling that the sitaution could have been easily avoided.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book is gripping, I couldn't put it down. The author writes so well, you have to remind yourself this is the shocking reality of war, not a work of fiction. I learnt more about the Iraq War from this than years of news coverage.
It shows how leaders can fail, organisations can fail and individuals can fail. While other individuals can thrive and endure in the very same circumstances. War is not black and white but shades of grey where someone can simultaneously be a hero or a criminal. How events unfold and which lives are lost, is sometimes a matter of split second decisions, random ambivalence and the temporary insanity of war.
It shows how leaders can fail, organisations can fail and individuals can fail. While other individuals can thrive and endure in the very same circumstances. War is not black and white but shades of grey where someone can simultaneously be a hero or a criminal. How events unfold and which lives are lost, is sometimes a matter of split second decisions, random ambivalence and the temporary insanity of war.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Like no other journalist's account of conflict
This is more of a thinking man's war-story, it isn't `war porn'. The focus is on the physical and psychological break-down of the soldiers in the context of spectacular failings by... Read more
Published 20 days ago by Flashman
Compelling first rate investigative journalism
This book is one of the best pieces of investigative journalism I have ever read. The account of what happened to one platoon in Iraq is essential reading for anyone to understand... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Dangermouse
Black Hearts is Outstanding.
Reading this report, you may think I am regularly given to exaggeration or am easily impressed by books. This is not the case. Read more
Published 9 months ago by B.T. Greatorex
nasty, thought provoking work
Until I read this book I was under the impression that US soldiers at war got it pretty easy. Us Brits slogged away with substandard equipment and shoddy infrastructure whilst the... Read more
Published 9 months ago by david hollingsworth
Buy it!
I only want to say that I read all the reviews before I bought and read this book -not my thing normally - and they are all correct - buy it. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Ifor H. Smout
An intensely sobering depiction of warfare in the early 21st century
I began reading this book thinking that I had a reasonable layman's understanding of what was going on in Iraq during the US occupation. Read more
Published 12 months ago by A. Hooper
Clear thoughts in dark times
War is a type of madness.Iraq was no different . Jim Frederick has been there and this book is a series of postcards from it's heart. The story is simple. Read more
Published 12 months ago by James Field
A gripping contribution to understanding war
Black Hearts gives a chilling insight into how easily war destroys the souls of men. It reads with a pace that left my hands clammy and heart beating that bit quicker. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Tom Smith
Modern Classic
I would say this is the definitive book on the Iraq war.
Intelligent and balanced as you would expect from a journalist's account, without the machismo some 'grunt'... Read more
Intelligent and balanced as you would expect from a journalist's account, without the machismo some 'grunt'... Read more
Published 15 months ago by vendosian
Military realism
This book is absolotely spot on the realities of the infantry platoon and the horrors of ground military operations. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Christos
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