Aftermath: The Remnants of War: From Landmines to Chemical Warfare--The Devastating Effects of Modern Combat [Paperback]

Donovan Webster (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 12, 1998

In riveting and revelatory detail, Aftermath documents the ways in which wars have transformed the terrain of the battlefield into landscapes of memory and enduring terror: in France, where millions of acres of farmland are cordoned off to all but a corps of demolition experts responsible for the undetonated bombs and mines of World War I that are now rising up in fields, gardens, and backyards; in a sixty-square-mile area outside Stalingrad that was a cauldron of destruction in 1941 and is today an endless field of bones; in the Nevada deserts, where America waged a hidden nuclear war against itself in the 1950's, the results of which are only now becoming apparent; in Vietnam, where a nation's effort to remove the physical detritus of war has created psychological and genetic devastation; in Kuwait, where terrifyingly sophisticated warfare was followed by the Sisyphean task of making an uninhabitable desert capable of sustaining life.

Aftermath excavates our century's darkest history, revealing that the destruction of the past remains deeply, inextricably embedded in the present.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Donovan Webster, a former editor at Outside magazine, has written an eyewitness account of the impossible tasks involved with removing armaments that continue to kill after war has ceased. Between 110 and 120 million land mines are planted in the soil of more than 64 countries. The exponential numbers point to the staggering difficulties Aftermath details: each year more than 5 million new land mines are laid, and only 100,000 are cleared; a new mine costs $3, but removing one costs between $200 and $1,000. In Angola, there are more than 15 million mines, two for every citizen. Webster traces the deadly legacy from the French battlefields of World War I to Vietnam and the Persian Gulf, describing the work of sappers in a compelling story that brings to light the horrifying legacy of warfare. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

War scars land as well as people. That is the truth that Webster, a former senior editor of Outside magazine, explores in his evocative first book, expanded from an article he wrote for the Smithsonian magazine. Webster proceeds by examining the physical legacies of 20th-century conflict. In France, the legacy consists of unexploded shells and bombs?12 million of them at Verdun alone. At Stalingrad, there are the bones of 300,000 German dead. In Nevada, Webster surveys the results of a decade of open-air nuclear testing, and of disposal sites poisoned for the next 12,000 years by stored nuclear waste. Vietnam, devastated by high explosive and chemical defoliants, continues to pay war's price in mutilated adults and malformed children. The author finds that the deserts of Kuwait are sown with seven million land mines left behind by the armies of Desert Storm and that, in Utah, the U.S. seeks to destroy chemical agents no less toxic for being obsolete. Webster tours these sites himself, personalizing his narrative. He describes their origins and introduces the people who seek to mitigate their effects. More than many academic analyses, this finely written work provides a compelling story of what humanity is willing to do to its world?and itself?in the name of national interest.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; Vintage Books ed edition (May 12, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067975153X
• ISBN-13: 978-0679751533
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #45,679 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #37 in Books > Arts & Photography > Schools, Periods & Styles > Modern

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A compelling investigative work, November 10, 1998

By 

Dennis J. Buckley (Harrisburg, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Aftermath: The Remnants of War: From Landmines to Chemical Warfare--The Devastating Effects of Modern Combat (Paperback)

The substance of this book has been covered by other reviewers. This intriguing generalist's work documents the author's on-site investigation of the lethal persistence of modern weapons dating from the First World War. Beyond this, Webster has communicated to American readers what happens after a modern war is fought on your soil. Webster's writing style is pleasing and readily accessible by any reader, and in one chapter he builds on his very well-written and moving piece on Verdun which ran in _Smithsonian_ some time ago.

The reason that this reviewer has not accorded a "five star rating" is simple: this work leaves the expert hungry for more. Webster is an intelligent and articulate man who could easily expand on this work. Overlooking a number of essentially editorial errors (such as Tiger and Panther tanks rolling across France in 1940), one wishes that Webster had further developed his theme of the violation of the social compact through the use of persistent agents and explosives. The work as written should be read by any historian who is serious about the study of modern war.

Beyond any one overarching theme, Webster has uncovered the answers-- or at least more evidence-- to a number of "mysteries" of military history.

Webster's compelling chapter on the fate of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad may answer the question of what happened to many of the 250,000 Axis soldiers who "disappeared" on the Russian steppe in 1942-1943: those who did not perish in Soviet camps were literally left to rot where they fell. This unpalatable but now evident conclusion is borne out by the author's visits to the "bone fields" around the sites of the German military airfields and evacuation sites at Pitomnik and Gumrak. Webster reports the view of his Russian hosts that the dead fell defending those airports, but their contention falls flat in the face of eyewitness accounts and the acres of unburied bones seen by the author.

Webster is, first and foremost, a chronicler. Without passing judgment on any particular "side" in the wars he covers, Webster chronicles the physical aftermath on the battlefield. This reviewer would have valued more of Webster's own analysis and critical commentary than is offered. He has, after all, walked the ground and has thoughts to share on the horrific aftermath of modern warfare.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking (to the point of being shocking)!, March 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Aftermath: The Remnants of War: From Landmines to Chemical Warfare--The Devastating Effects of Modern Combat (Paperback)

Aftermath, which Webster researched personally and in incredibe detail, is thought provoking to the point of being shocking. The history and scale of this century's warfare that he reveals has given me, a former US Navy officer, a new-found respect for foot soilders and their terrible burdens. As a father of young children, Aftermath left me with a sadness for those people of France, Kuwait, Viet Nam, and a thousand other battle sites, who have grown up with the explosive and toxic remnants of modern man's conflicts. Be warned. Don Webster's prowess as a writer (National Geographic, NY Times, etc.) is obvious. You won't want to put the book down once you start.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating...readable...compelling, May 30, 2003

By 

John Pinna "nidan48" (East Northport, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Aftermath: The Remnants of War: From Landmines to Chemical Warfare--The Devastating Effects of Modern Combat (Paperback)

I did not expect his book to grab me the way it did, yeah I'd read about all the land mines left in Iran etc. but to learn about the extent of unexploded munitions left worldwide from conflicts dating back a century was a shock. Mr. Webster took me around the world to places I wouldn't have imagined, the affluent young French wife who found her son playing in the yard with live German artillary shells, the plains of Russia still hiding live munitions, even a forgotten test range that is now a San Diego suburb where children playing found live unexploded artillary.

Twenty, forty, a hundred years later this stuff is unstable and more dangerous than new, triggers have deteriorated, anything can set them off, and men go to work daily risking their lives to clear high explosives from places that were once battlefields and now are parks, farms, and residential areas.

This was one of those books that left a permanent impression on me, Mr. Webster's frank narrative showed a world more dangerous and unpredictable than I ever imagined.