War books

The Dutch army captain whose unit secured Tuzla airbase for the incoming UN aid in 1994 talks about the books he kept with him in Bosnia, and the inspiration for his Yugoslav novel, King of Tuzla

Award-winning reporter and novelist Vanora Bennett says there are no superlatives too superlative for Anna Politkovskaya, who, after three books and innumerable investigative reporting trips to Chechnya, was murdered in Moscow

The Economist’s Africa editor chooses histories of Sudan, Africa’s biggest country, as well as the very personal stories of a child slave and a child soldier who was committing atrocities only a decade ago

Wars begin when human beings choose to fight, and, consequently, a war must be directed at the enemy’s will to fight, says John David Lewis (1955-2012), a political scientist at Duke.  He chooses five books on war and foreign policy—from ancient Rome to  America's neoconservatives.

The author of Torture and Democracy gives a harrowing interview on the effects of violence, torture and trauma on the human being, 'torture has a slippery slope and once you authorise it, it rapidly runs out of control'

Andy McNab, author and SAS veteran, discusses the politics of war, arguing that it's principally all about money and politics.

Director of Landmine Action who served in British army with the Black Watch, talks crime and terror and explores the extent to which al Qaeda is the creation of the Pakistani Intelligence Services backed by Saudi money

The Professor of Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins University picks five books you must read to understand the War on Terror, starting with one that tries to define what terrorism is.

Pete Winner spent 18 years in the SAS, the special forces unit of the British Army that has a reputation for being only for the toughest of the tough. Here he recommends some of the best books that give a feel for what it's like to be in the SAS or 'Special Air Service.'

The acting director of the Writing Program at Boston University argues that cowardice can still be part of our ethical vocabulary, but that we must learn from history's mistaken identification of the traumatised as cowards.