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Peter Beaumont

The Secret Life of War Hardcover – 7 May 2009

by Peter Beaumont (Author)

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Once it was simple to write about war. States or ideologies clashed; battles were fought between national armies or movements. But war has changed. War has become 'privatised' by small armed groups, states have fragmented and the conventional arms of the United States have been defeated by warlordism. Drawing on the author's experiences as the "Observer's" chief foreign correspondent, "The Secret Life of War" focuses on the human cost of war: to the combatants, to civilians and to the author, as one who bears witness. Every encounter is arresting: a visit to the bombed and abandoned home of Mullah Omar; a deserted Al Qaeda camp where Beaumont discovers documents describing a plan to bomb London; and, young bomb-throwers in Rafah refugee camp. But what marks out "The Secret Life of War" from innumerable other accounts is the sum it makes of these parts: a lasting catalogue of fear and harm, an anatomy of the human impulse to confrontation; an atlas of armed conflict. Often travelling unembedded and without bodyguards in some of the world's most dangerous locations, he has managed to achieve a rare closeness with his interview subjects, a sense of intimacy with soldiers and other combatants even in the midst of ongoing violence. Unflinching and exquisitely written, "The Secret Life of War" goes beyond classic reportage: it is a deeply personal and defining vision of the inner, secret nature of modern war.

Print length

288 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Harvill Secker
Publication date

7 May 2009
Dimensions

14.5 x 2.8 x 22.1 cm
ISBN-10

1846551579
ISBN-13

978-1846551574
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Product description

Review

'astonishing, not least for its careful detail and his self-searching honesty. A superb piece of work' -- Esquire

'never less than compelling and at times brilliant... Beaumont's diligent style of journalism is in short supply these days'
-- Times

The reporter and the photojournalist witness up close what no one else should see. Only those who have been there can comprehend.

The Secret Life of War is an awesome read, the best enquiry into killing and suffering I've encountered. A plea for resolution, a document of brutal honesty, the bare truth: in it beats the pulse of being there in the throes of modern conflict -- Tim Page

`Beaumont is fluid and elegant in his description of war and its symptoms' -- Evening Standard

`Beaumont writes beautifully and calmly, even when describing the fiercest and most emotive moments of war.' -- Observer

`Beaumont's book is on a different plane to the others [war literature by journalists] and will outlast many of them'
-- The Sunday Times

`Beaumont...reveal[s] his own psychological damage as he sets about dismantling the myths of war...laying out their...human cost'.
-- Metro

`Modern war is...about complexity and uncertainty, and in his accounts of his journeys through conflict, Beaumont certainly evokes this' -- Literary Review

`an intelligent, deeply perceptive work... Beaumont has slipped beneath the skin of contemporary warfare to examine what lies beneath' -- Times

Review

'astonishing, not least for its careful detail and his self-searching honesty. A superb piece of work'

Review

`Modern war is...about complexity and uncertainty, and in his accounts of his journeys through conflict, Beaumont certainly evokes this'

Review

`Beaumont writes beautifully and calmly, even when describing the fiercest and most emotive moments of war.'

Book Description

`an intelligent, deeply perceptive work... Beaumont has slipped beneath the skin of contemporary warfare to examine what lies beneath'

From the Inside Flap

Once it was simple to write about war. States clashed; battles were fought between armies. But war has changed.

States have fragmented, small armed groups have become hugely influential, and the conventional arms of the United States, the worlds last superpower, have been defeated by warlordism. The Secret Life of War describes the human cost of war, in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq, Israel, the Occupied Territories and elsewhere: to the combatants, to civilians and to the author, as one who bears witness.

Every encounter is arresting: a visit to the bombed and abandoned home of Mullah Omar; a deserted Al Qaeda camp where Beaumont discovers documents describing a plan to attack London; young bomb-throwers in a Rafah refugee camp. But what marks out The Secret Life of War is the sum it makes of these parts: an enduring catalogue of fear and harm, an anatomy of the human impulse to confrontation, an atlas of armed conflict.

Often travelling unembedded and without bodyguards in some of the worlds most dangerous locations, Peter Beaumont has managed to achieve a rare closeness with his interview subjects, a sense of intimacy even in the midst of ongoing violence.

Unflinching and exquisitely written, The Secret Life of War goes beyond classic reportage: it is a deeply personal and defining vision of the inner, secret nature of modern war.

About the Author

Peter Beaumont is foreign affairs editor at the Observer. He has reported extensively from conflict zones including Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East, and has written widely on human rights issues and the impact of conflict on civilians. The winner of the George Orwell Prize for his reports from Iraq. He is the author of The Secret Life of War: Journeys Through Modern Conflict.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harvill Secker; First edition (7 May 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1846551579
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1846551574
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 14.5 x 2.8 x 22.1 cm

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14 ratings

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Ruth Hartley Author

An Important book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 July 2019

Verified Purchase

I’ve just finished reading The Secret Life of War (ISBN:978-099-52098-6 Publisher Vintage 2008) by Peter Beaumont. This is a very important book. Required reading for anyone interested in understanding contemporary politics anywhere in the world.
For his commitment to excellent journalism, Beaumont paid a high price in damage to his own mental health and personal life. Beaumont covers war and conflict in the Middle East for about 15 years up until 2008. This is not just an account of what Beaumont saw and experienced or a feat of accurate journalism, but a perceptive and thought-provoking work of literary quality that adds to our understanding of humanity and its problems.
Beaumont moves through reporting accurately what happens in wars and conflict zones to an impassioned account of how a single bullet contaminates a wounded human body and destroys it by infection. If it were not impossible to say this about his subject matter, I would describe this chapter as lyrical, but perhaps I mean epic and also metaphysical. Beaumont goes on to use this description metaphorically to explain what has happened, and continues to unfold in Iraq and in Gaza.
I recommend this book as an essential read, tough as the subject matter is. Yes, it isn’t a hopeful book, but it does increase understanding and knowledge and that is where we can begin to find answers.

Helpful

Germangeoff

The End of a Serious Journey through mud, blood, muck & bullets in Gaza, Iraq and Afghanistan

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 May 2014

Verified Purchase

This is an extremely good but weighty book. It is very well-written, original in concept and fully deserves the 4 stars (I feel a bit mean not giving it the full 5). However, it is the product of a man emerging from 20+ years as a war junkie and the weariness comes through. I found it tough going though the nature of its subject matter. The author is trying to convey what happens in war that you don;t see on the telly, and it is not pretty. I happen to be of the view that it is not the kind of experience you can pick up from a book, however well-written. The allegory of describing in careful detail what happens when the body becomes infected after a gunshot wound alongside how a society disintegrates where previously harmony existed is very cleverly done. This same approach is taken in a number of other areas, such as what happens to the brain to feel fear. All the same, clever as it undoubtedly is, I was not sorry to reach the end.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 January 2013

Verified Purchase

Bought as a gift for my son who said the book was a good read.
I recommend this book highly.

Helpful

DenselowBadger

a deeply personal and moving account of the human sacrifice that is volunteered by those who choose to cover such conflicts

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 October 2009

"The Secret Life of War - Journeys Through Modern Conflict" Peter Beaumont (Harvill Secker, London 2009)

Peter Beaumont, the Observers foreign affairs editor, has produced a deeply emotional and unusual chronicle of his travels through the wars of the modern era. Unlike many journalistic accounts of the Iraq, Afghan and Israel-Palestine conflicts, Beaumont is less concerned with providing a narrative of what happened but rather attempts to personalize and inject emotional understanding as to the true nature of conflict itself.

The detachment felt between the citizens of the West and the wars that are fought in their name relies upon war reporters to provide a bridge of understanding. Beaumont realizes that this is a growing disconnect and that `we talk too often about war as an alien sphere, divorced from ordinary life'. In order for those in the safe and comfortable surroundings of peacetime to understand the enormity of war, Beaumont attempts to provide the missing texture of `how conflict smells feels and tastes'. To do so the author opens up his personal responses to what he experiences and becomes an honest filter of the `alien' events themselves.

Beaumont goes back to his younger self's experience with heroin as a means of committing himself to a far more subjective narrative than the accounts of many of his fellow reporters. As well as elegant descriptions of the horrors of war; the suicide bomber's victims shoe, the smell of a gunfight, Beaumont adopts a more detailed examination of the science of conflict. Speaking to military psychologists and making mathematical connections between people and the acts of war. Yet the reality of conflict always appears to trump the cold theory that underpins it; the author admits that he is not a neutral actor in the violence that surrounds him and is even driven by an `unhealthy fascination'. Examining a history of permissive killing is put into context by an interview with a US solider in Iraq who admits that he is `so far out of my bubble'.

Steadily the story shows how corrupting conflict can be for those who commit themselves to describe and report it. The book goes further and deeper into understanding violence than newspapers can ever go. Beaumont admits that he has been unable to write what he wants as `it is still regarded as bad form to describe the reality of the everyday horror of conflict'.

The censoring of war's reality is the secret that Beaumont attempts to disclose. It sometimes feels as if this is his last attempt to do so, as he moves from conflict to conflict explaining the routine of survival and how his life has become `parcelled out' into `passages of being afraid'. As Iraq descends into an uncontrollable and terrifying chaos, Beaumont starts keeping weapons in his bedroom. He later realizes that he has crossed into a new phase of understanding his role within events. His time covering wars was `grinding slowly to an end', he had become `compromised by fear... corrupted by what conflict means'. His observer status had been comprehensively challenged and he admitted that he'd `lost the ability to document the hurt of war honestly'.

`The Secret Life of War' is not simply a visceral narration of the nature of modern war, it is a deeply personal and moving account of the human sacrifice that is volunteered by those who choose to cover such conflicts. Underpinning the entire work is a sense of dark melancholy, as if the author has accepted the reality that to some degree he is far too deep to ever turn back. Beaumont's recent return to Gaza is perhaps proof that his unearthing of the secrets of war shows no sign of coming to an end.

6 people found this helpful

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The Secret Life of War Hardcover – 7 May 2009

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