This series of war sketches by the foreign affairs editor of The Observer is both brilliant and oppressively heavy, both harrowing and over-intellectual. Beaumont’s main focus is on the effects of war on civilians There’s no doubting his intelligence or his experience, but at times these tableaus of modern conflict feast too much on their own earnestness, like a serpent eating its own tail. At one point the solemnity even supplants logic. Periodic attempts to step back from the horrors of war by sharing clinical explorations of human frailty do educate, but they don’t relieve tension. The book is worth reading, but it’s a slog. Reviewed on Reviewed on Oct. 6, 2022