Description

There are no winners in war, only losers. We have so far avoided a third world war, but across the globe regional conflicts flare up in a seemingly unstoppable cycle. Who can stand between the armed camps?

Over six decades, Martin Bell has stood in eighteen war zones – as a soldier, a reporter and a UNICEF ambassador. Now he looks back on our efforts to keep the peace since the end of the Second World War and the birth of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the new State of Israel.

From the failures of Bosnia, Rwanda and South Sudan to nationalism’s resurgence and the distribution of alternative facts across a darkening political landscape, Bell calls for us to learn from past mistakes – before it’s too late.

Publisher Review

'Martin Bell is the finest foreign correspondent of his generation.' -- John Laurence, author of The Cat from Hue: A Vietnam War Story 'When I was a young reporter Martin Bell was the TV journalist we all wanted to turn into one day: brave, ferociously principled, unshowy, beautifully spare and articulate, and always uncompromising in preferring what was true to what was spuriously 'balanced'. These qualities leap off the pages of this powerful and penetrating memoir-come-manifesto. His is a voice of clarity, compassion and towering authority. When I was young I wanted to be just like him. I still do.' -- Allan Little 'In my view and without doubt Martin Bell was the finest war reporter of his generation. Martin's personal reflections on not just Bosnia but so many other hotspots of the world flow easily, are hugely perceptive and simply get it. He is a master of emotive depiction and his words bring every situation he describes to life. I have not been able to put this book down since I received it.' -- Colonel Bob Stewart MP 'Bell writes well and he has witnessed many interesting things in his long career... Martin Bell is clearly and transparently a decent and, in some respects, heroic man.' -- Adrian Weale, Literary Review