Review: The Fall of Baghdad, the Iraq War
| Date | 01 December 2005 |
| Author | Yvonne Murray |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200506000430 |
| Published date | 01 December 2005 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
| Reviews |
| 1182 | International Journal | Autumn 2005 |
views conducted with them. This firsthand testimony provides the book’s
major interest,since although the authors note that such an “inside” perspec-
tive is not commonly found in the literature, the book otherwise confirms
many of the things alreadyknown about the vulnerability of certaingroups of
young people to the appealof taking up arms and joining combatant armies.
Brett and Specht point to the importance of poverty as a motivating fac-
tor in prompting young people to join armed groups, but rightly note that
this by itself is insufficient to explain the child soldier phenomenon. Rather,
they argue that environmental factors such as this create the situation in
which individual personal histories and individual “triggers,” or specific
events, lead young people to take up arms. Motivation often differs between
boys and girls, and the authors caution that some of what we think we know
about the creation of child soldiers reflects adult perceptions rather than the
reality experienced by the children themselves.
This is a useful short introduction to a complex topic. The social science
methodology is confined to an appendix, and is not allowed to get in the way
of either the firsthand testimony of the young participants or the analysis
and conclusions drawn by the authors. The closing observation, that as long
as there are wars, children will be drawn into them as combatants, seems
more soundly based than their belief that such circumstances may be ame-
liorated through “social dialogue and other non-violent means” (136).
Jeffrey Grey/University College, AustralianDefence Force Academy
THE FALL OF BAGHDAD
Jon Lee Anderson
New York: PenguinPress, 2004. x, 389pp,$36.00 cloth (ISBN1-59420-034-3)
THE IRAQ WAR
As Witnessed by the Correspondents and Photographers of United Press
International
Edited by Martin Walker
Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2004. xviii, 226pp, US$19.95 paper (ISBN 1-
57488-798-X)
The face of war is rarely human. Amid a barrage of foreign policy concepts,
meaningless statistics,and endless editorializing, real lifetends to be forgotten.
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