Customer Reviews

Where War Lives: A Journey into the Heart of War

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As a Somalia veteran and well aware of how dangerous a mob could be, I had always wondered what Watson was thinking when he was the lone American in the middle of a seething mob of Africans who were tearing an American corpse apart. His description of the event is so powerful, I felt like I was back on Mogadishu's streets with him, seeing what he saw and feeling his fear, not of just being killed, but of being torn apart. Four other journalists had been dealt with that way by a Somali mob three months before the Black Hawk Down firefight and he presumed the same thing would happen to him. Not only does he take the pictures and manage to get away, but actually went back a second time to take more pictures in case his editor didn't accept the first batch because they showed the corpse's genitals.

Watson then goes on to describe other war zones he reported on: the Persian Gulf War, Rwanda, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. He describes his trade of being a war correspondent without apology as he travels from one slaughter to another, taking pictures and writing the stories of the soldiers and their victims. In the end, he finds that the only thing that gives meaning in a world of war, bloodshed, violence, death and destruction is love. It sounds like a simple answer, but Watson's journey into where war lives is profound.

This book is really thought provoking. It should be particularly interesting to photographers with a political interest.