John Berger, et al: War with No End
Berger, John, et al. War With No End (New York: Verso, 2007)
Verso's War With No End is a sister book--at least in subject matter and design--to Not One More Death, which I reviewed here. The slightly larger size and higher page count of the new book are factors that work in its favor, although the sixteen pages of Joe Sacco's graphic narrative "Down! Up!" (from Harper's) are reproduced at too small a size to fully appreciate his artwork.
A glaringly obvious error arose early in the book, when Lindsey German claimed in "The Long War" (p. 8) that Bush landed aboard the USS Vincennes. (It shouldn't require a fact-checker to note that Chimpy McFlightsuit's photo-op landing was aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln; the USS Vincennes is the guided missile cruiser responsible for destroying an Iranian civilian airliner in 1988.)
Hanif Kureishi's "Weddings and Beheadings," an autobiographical piece about a videographer who is forced to film beheadings for terrorists, is the most harrowing essay in the book. Before reading it, I had assumed some technical ability on behalf of the terrorists; reading about their co-opting innocents into barbarism may be nearly as heinous as their murders.
As with all anthologies, War With No End is a mixed bag; Sacco's and Kureishi's pieces--along with an essay on "Disaster Capitalism" from Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine--are the standouts. If you have an anti-war shelf in your home library, you might consider adding this book to it.