War Junkie

War Junkie
Author: Jon Steele
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 444
Release: 2012-02-29
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1448126789

Jon Steele is a war junkie. Soon after starting work as an ITN cameraman, he began to feel strangely at home in the kind of places ordinary people get evacuated from. Before long, he was living for the rush which comes as bullets fly past your head and bombs explode at your feet. Normal life just couldn't compete... In Georgia, Jon filmed on the last flight out of the besieged airport at Sokhumi, as the plane took off in the dead of night, all lights extinguished, going the wrong way down the runway, directly towards the nearby steep and virtually invisible mountain range while Abkhazian soldiers fired off random anti-aircraft shells in their general direction. In Moscow, he filmed in the midst of chaos as armed rebels and Militia fought bloodthirsty, hand-to-hand battles on the streets around him. In Rwanda, he filmed the horrific aftermath to the most brutal massacre of modern times - and his own neck got far too close to the edge of a machete for comfort. In Zaire, he filmed endless fields full of young children deranged by hunger and ravaged by cholera. In Bosnia, Jon realised that he had, in fact, seen and filmed more than he could cope with, and finally spiralled out of control, deep into emotional meltdown. But somehow War Junkie is also an incredibly funny and exhilarating book. The humour is dark but sharp as broken glass. The action comes so thick and fast you can forget to breathe. War Junkie is shocking, hilarious, deeply moving and, ultimately, it packs a powerful psychological punch. It will challenge everything you thought you knew about modern warfare as it shines an unforgiving spotlight into some of the darkest recesses of recent history.

War Junkie

War Junkie
Author: Joe Sacco
Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
Total Pages: 135
Release: 1995
Genre: Funny military comic books, strips, etc
ISBN: 9781560971702

Journalists Under Fire

Journalists Under Fire
Author: Anthony Feinstein
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2006-09-08
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780801884412

Outstanding Academic Title for 2007, Choice Magazine As journalists in Iraq and other hot spots around the world continue to face harrowing dangers and personal threats, neuropsychiatrist Anthony Feinstein offers a timely and important exploration into the psychological damage of those who, armed only with pen, tape recorder, or camera, bear witness to horror. Based on a series of recent studies investigating the emotional impact of war on the profession, Journalists under Fire breaks new ground in the study of trauma-related disorders. Feinstein opens with an overview of the life-threatening hazards war reporters face—abductions, mock executions, the deaths of close colleagues—and discusses their psychological consequences: post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, deterioration of personal relationships, and substance abuse. In recounting the experiences of reporters who encounter trauma on the job, Feinstein observes that few adequate support systems are in place for them. He tells the stories of media veterans who have "seen it all," only to find themselves and their employers blindsided by psychological aftershocks. The book explores the biological and psychological factors that motivate journalists to take extraordinary risks. Feinstein looks into the psyches of freelancers who wade into war zones with little or no financial backing; he examines the different stresses encountered by women working in a historically male-dominated profession; and he probes the effects of the September 11 attacks on reporters who thought they had sworn off conflict reporting. His interviews with many of this generation's greatest reporters, photographers, and videographers often reveal extraordinary resilience in the face of adversity. Journalists under Fire is a look behind the public persona of war journalists at a time when the profession faces unprecedented risk. Plucking common threads from disparate stories, Feinstein weaves a narrative that is as fascinating to read as it is sobering to contemplate. What emerges are unique insights into lives lived dangerously.

Dr. Junkie: One Man's Story of Addiction and Crime That Will Challenge Everything You Know About the War on Drugs

Dr. Junkie: One Man's Story of Addiction and Crime That Will Challenge Everything You Know About the War on Drugs
Author: Benjamin Boyce
Publisher: Loyola College/Apprentice House
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2022-02
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781627203890

The war on drugs has long since lost any illusion of success. It is currently entering its second century of active combat, and drugs are cheaper and more abundant each year the war continues. Before 1914, drugs were legal in the United States. Heroin, cocaine, and morphine could be purchased at the corner store, and those who used drugs were generally contributing members of society. It wasn't until drugs were outlawed that all the problems began. Humans are drug-using creatures. We have always loved to get high, and we always will. All attempts to restrict drugs have thus far failed, and no penalty is harsh enough to prevent users from using. The war has resulted in little more than dangerous conditions for drug users. We must contend with risky street markets, polluted products, fake drugs, unsanitary conditions, and the violence which often accompanies underworld commodities. But there is a better way. Dr. Junkie is a roadmap for explaining how we got here, as well as how we can get out.

My War Gone By, I Miss It So

My War Gone By, I Miss It So
Author: Anthony Loyd
Publisher: September Publishing
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2015-11-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 1910463175

'Undoubtedly the most powerful and immediate book to emerge from the Balkan horror of ethnic civil war' Antony Beevor, Daily Telegraph In 1993, Anthony Loyd hitchhiked to the Balkans hoping to become a journalist. Leaving behind him the legends of a distinguished military family, he wanted to see 'a real war' for himself. In Bosnia he found one. The cruelty and chaos of the conflict both appalled and embraced him; the adrenalin lure of the action perhaps the loudest siren call of all. In the midst of the daily life-and-death struggle among Bosnia's Serbs, Croats and Muslims, Loyd was inspired by the extraordinary human fortitude he discovered. But returning home he found the void of peacetime too painful to bear, and so began a longstanding personal battle with drug abuse. This harrowing account shows humanity at its worst and best. It is a breathtaking feat of reportage; an uncompromising look at the terrifyingly seductive power of war. 'As good as reporting gets. I have nowhere read a more vivid account of frontline fear and survival. Forget the strategic overview. All war is local' Martin Bell, The Times

The Hell of War Comes Home

The Hell of War Comes Home
Author: Owen W. Gilman Jr.
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2018-02-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1496815793

Owen W. Gilman Jr. stresses the US experience of war in the twenty-first century and argues that wherever and whenever there is war, there will be imaginative responses to it, especially the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Since the trauma of September 11, the experience of Americans at war has been rendered honestly and fully in a wide range of texts--creative nonfiction and journalism, film, poetry, and fiction. These responses, Gilman contends, have packed a lot of power and measure up even to World War II's literature and film. Like few other books, Gilman's volume studies these new texts-- among them Kevin Powers's debut novel The Yellow Birds and Phil Klay's short stories Redeployment, along with the films The Hurt Locker, American Sniper, and Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk. For perspective, Gilman also looks at some touchstones from the Vietnam War. Compared to a few of the big Vietnam books and films, this new material has mostly been read and watched by small audiences and generated less discussion. Gilman exposes the circumstances in American culture currently preventing literature and film of our recent wars from making a significant impact. He contends that Americans' inclination to demand distraction limits learning from these compelling responses to war in the past decade. According to Gilman, where there should be clarity and depth of knowledge, we instead face misunderstanding and the anguish endured by veterans betrayed by war and our lack of understanding.

War Stories

War Stories
Author: Jeremy Bowen
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2012-09-27
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1471114740

Having joined the BBC as a trainee in 1984, Jeremy Bowen first became a foreign correspondent four years later. He had witnessed violence already, both at home and abroad, but it wasn't until he covered his first war -- in El Salvador -- that he felt he had arrived. Armed with the fearlessness of youth he lived for the job, was in love with it, aware of the dangers but assuming the bullets and bombs were meant for others. In 2000, however, after eleven years in some of the world's most dangerous places, the bullets came too close for comfort, and a close friend was killed in Lebanon. This, and then the birth of his first child, began a process of reassessment that culminated in the end of the affair. Now, in his extraordinarily gripping and thought-provoking new book, he charts his progress from keen young novice whose first reaction to the sound of gunfire was to run towards it to the more circumspect veteran he is today. It will also discuss the changes that have taken place in the ways in which wars are reported over the course of his career, from the Gulf War to Bosnia, Afghanistan to Rwanda.

Chasing the Scream

Chasing the Scream
Author: Johann Hari
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2015-01-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1620408929

The New York Times Bestseller What if everything you think you know about addiction is wrong? Johann Hari's journey into the heart of the war on drugs led him to ask this question--and to write the book that gave rise to his viral TED talk, viewed more than 62 million times, and inspired the feature film The United States vs. Billie Holiday and the documentary series The Fix. One of Johann Hari's earliest memories is of trying to wake up one of his relatives and not being able to. As he grew older, he realized he had addiction in his family. Confused, not knowing what to do, he set out and traveled over 30,000 miles over three years to discover what really causes addiction--and what really solves it. He uncovered a range of remarkable human stories--of how the war on drugs began with Billie Holiday, the great jazz singer, being stalked and killed by a racist policeman; of the scientist who discovered the surprising key to addiction; and of the countries that ended their own war on drugs--with extraordinary results. Chasing the Scream is the story of a life-changing journey that transformed the addiction debate internationally--and showed the world that the opposite of addiction is connection.

Violentologies

Violentologies
Author: B. V. Olguín
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 407
Release: 2021-01-05
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0198863098

Violentologies explores how different forms of violence shape identity and political vision in both familiar and unexpected ways using Latina/o writers and performers as case-studies.

Tokyo Junkie

Tokyo Junkie
Author: Robert Whiting
Publisher: Stone Bridge Press, Inc.
Total Pages: 286
Release: 2021-04-20
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1611729491

Tokyo Junkie is a memoir that plays out over the dramatic 60-year growth of the megacity Tokyo, once a dark, fetid backwater and now the most populous, sophisticated, and safe urban capital in the world. Follow author Robert Whiting (The Chrysanthemum and the Bat, You Gotta Have Wa, Tokyo Underworld) as he watches Tokyo transform during the 1964 Olympics, rubs shoulders with the Yakuza and comes face to face with the city’s dark underbelly, interviews Japan’s baseball elite after publishing his first best-selling book on the subject, and learns how politics and sports collide to produce a cultural landscape unlike any other, even as a new Olympics is postponed and the COVID virus ravages the nation. A colorful social history of what Anthony Bourdain dubbed, “the greatest city in the world,” Tokyo Junkie is a revealing account by an accomplished journalist who witnessed it all firsthand and, in the process, had his own dramatic personal transformation.