Secret Life of War

the long version

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, the world's last superpower, have been defeated by warlordism. Drawing on the author's experiences as the Observer's chief foreign correspondent, The Secret Life of War focusses on 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 bomb London; young bomb-throwers in Rafah refugee camp.