Product Description

National Bestseller
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award
A New York Times Book Review Best Book of the Year

One of the Best Books of the Year:
New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Boston Globe, and Time

An instant classic of war reporting, The Forever War is the definitive account of America's conflict with Islamic fundamentalism and a searing exploration of its human costs. Through the eyes of Filkins, a foreign correspondent for the New York Times, we witness the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s, the aftermath of the attack on New York on September 11th, and the American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Filkins is the only American journalist to have reported on all these events, and his experiences are conveyed in a riveting narrative filled with unforgettable characters and astonishing scenes.

Brilliant and fearless, The Forever War is not just about America's wars after 9/11, but about the nature of war itself.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19393 in Books
• Published on: 2009-06-02
• Released on: 2009-06-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780307279446
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Filkins, a New York Times prize–winning reporter, is widely regarded as among the finest war correspondents of this generation. His richly textured book is based on his work in Afghanistan and Iraq since 1998. It begins with a Taliban-staged execution in Kabul. It ends with Filkins musing on the names in a WWI British cemetery in Baghdad. In between, the work is a vivid kaleidoscope of vig-nettes. Individually, the strength of each story is its immediacy; together they portray a theater of the absurd, in which Filkins, an extraordinarily brave man, moves as both participant and observer. Filkins does not editorialize—a welcome change from the punditry that shapes most writing from these war zones. This book also differs essentially from traditional war correspondence because of its universal empathy, feelings enhanced by Filkins's spare prose. Saudi women in Kabul airport, clad in burqas and stylish shoes, bemoan their husbands' devotion to jihad. An Iraqi casually says to his friend, Let's go kill some Americans. A marine is shot dead escorting Filkins on a photo opportunity. Iraqi soldiers are disconcerted when he appears in running shorts (They looked at [my legs] in horror, as if I were naked). Carl von Clausewitz said war is a chameleon. In vividly illustrating the varied ways people in Afghanistan and iraq have been affected by ongoing war, Filkins demonstrates that truth in prose. 5 photos. (Sept. 17)
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From Booklist
Filkins, foreign correspondent for the New York Times, has covered the struggle against Islamic extremism in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. He marshals his broad experience to present a wide-ranging view of this struggle, told through a series of intense, vivid, and startling vignettes. Embedded with marines during the struggle for Fallujah, Filkins describes an almost surreal scene of confusion and unvarnished violence. In Kabul, Filkins witnesses the amputation of a pickpocket’s hand, followed by the execution of an accused murderer under the Taliban regime. At a press briefing, a Taliban “minister of information” recites a litany of forbidden activities that is both absurd and terrifying. An interview with Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Lion of Panjshir, who bravely fought both the Soviets and the Taliban, is particularly poignant, since he would eventually be assassinated by al-Qaeda operatives. Filkins accompanies Americans searching a Sunni village for insurgents, where their insensitivity probably creates more enemies than they capture. A portrait of the difficulty, complexity, and savagery of a conflict that will be with us for some time. --Jay Freeman

Review
“Harrowingly detailed . . . Filkins makes us see, with almost hallucinogenic immediacy, the true human meaning and consequences of the ‘war on terror.’”
-The New York Times 10 Best Books of 2008

“The gaping wounds of Iraq and Afghanistan have produced a torrent of words, but no single volume so far has the precision and power of The Forever War . . . Filkins’ set pieces have the absolute clarity of lightning flashes that burn away the fog of war.”
-Time Best Nonfiction Books of 2008

“Not since Michael Herr in Dispatches . . . has a reporter written as vividly about combat as Filkins does from Afghanistan and Iraq.”
-USA Today 10 Best Books of 2008

“Filkins’s meticulously constructed vignettes . . . illuminate and humanize the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.”
-Los Angeles Times Favorite Books 2008

“The Forever War . . . achieves a gripping, raw immediacy.”
-The Boston Globe’s Year’s Best Books

“Splendid.”
-Washington Post Book World Best Nonfiction of 2008

“Dexter Filkins's The Forever War is the best piece of war journalism I've ever read. He paints a portrait of war that is so nuanced, so filled with absurdities and heartbreak and unexpected heroes and villains, that it makes most of what we see and hear about Iraq and Afghanistan seem shrill and two-dimensional by comparison. And yet, as tragic as the events he describes are, the book manages to be a thing of towering beauty.”
-Dave Eggers, Guardian Best Books of the Year

"The Forever War is already a classic–it has the timeless feel of all great war literature. Dexter Filkins’s combination of courage and sensitivity is so rare that books like his come along only once every major war. This one is ours."
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Customer Reviews

Exceptional
Of the dozens of books written about the war in Iraq, along comes Dexter Filkins with a commentary on Iraq that blows the others away. Non-political and highly personal, Filkins goes after the day-to-day story that, through accumulation, delivers a report about the Iraqi citizenry over the years after the invasion. He captures it with style, wisdom and grace.

Americans have largely known the Iraqi war through political slants with a small degree of knowledge of the street. The author adds so much to the discourse. Who knew the depth that kidnapping played or how even going to the bathroom played with both American troops and the Iraqi people, disrupted as it was. This is a book of color and passion. I was particularly moved by a paragraph in which he relates how one would know if an Iraqi was killed by a Sunni or a Shia. The exceptional side of "The Forever War" is not only the presentation of the story but the narrative in which it is told.

Filkins has his own boots on the ground, grinding through Baghdad, Falluja and other hot spots. His book is one of remarkable courage under fire and serves to remind us of what our government simply didn't know about Iraq, or about which it didn't care. I highly recommend it.

Strange Odyssey
Made In Hero: The War for Soap

Dexter Filkins has written THE FOREVER WAR to tell us about Iraq. Afghanistan is also in there, along with countless other wars not directly visible, though just as bizarre and just as real. More improbable than the wars themselves is what an incredibly beautiful book can be written about their depressing situations. Or put another way, what a beautiful world it would be if everyone could write like this, but without the wars. Filkins offers all the elements of great literature: the sublime, the ridiculous, and the Zen.

On the surface, Dexter Filkins has chronicled his experiences of Afghanistan and Iraq. But aside from his unfiltered impressions of those distant worlds, THE FOREVER WAR really comes down to the personal quest that is likely to greet anyone trying to come home from a war. Reaching the final chapter of THE FOREVER WAR, I was sad. I hadn't wanted the journey to end, and felt a little guilty about that, considering the suffering between the pages. Still, for all the grief and sorrow, THE FOREVER WAR feels like a story about survivors.

The improbability remains. Why the beautiful book about such a doomed affair as THE FOREVER WAR? And what is the Forever War, exactly? Possibly a riddle, or chronicle, or quest? Maybe the definition doesn't matter. Aristotle formulated that writing is catharsis. I wonder if it's an addiction, a kind of cure. Some believe it's an act of redemption. Better yet, Gabriel Garcia Marquez calls writing "a state of grace." Whatever else it is, I hope THE FOREVER WAR is that.

Powerful and Moving
This will, I think, become the classic book of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. It is non-political and consists of multiple snapshots rangng over many years, not always in chronological sequence. These are Filkins's carefully selected memories of his life as a N.Y. Times reporter on the front lines, as well as his experiences on 9/11 at ground zero.

He makes no effort to "explain" the turmoil of the Middle East, but one puts the book down with a new understanding of some of the powerful and destructive forces at play. He is respectful of the U.S. military and his sketches of the bravery of the Americans fighting against bad odds, most of them only teenagers, is very moving.

Politics don't even intrude in the brief chapter on Ahmad Chalabi, it is rather a sketch on the personality of this complex and slippery player in the power struggles of the time.

I recommend this book as a companion to the excellent "Imperial Life in the Emerald City" which documents the appaling stupidity of U.S. policy in Iraq flowing down from the top. The "Forever War" balances that with the street smarts courage of our military. Still, Filkins would, I am sure, agree that imposing "democracy" by military force guarantees a forever war.

This is a powerful book, well and clearly written, by an experienced and compassionate observer.