The Shepherd website recently invited me to compile a list of the best books on the human impact of war, in my judgement. This is a subject of considerable interest to me. I have lived around active conflict, first as a participant, then as a journalist and researcher, and then sometimes as a type of participant again, for the last 22 years. This subject has become a central focus of my writing. I have a kind of feeling that this subject chose me, rather than the other way around. I dont mean that in some portentous sense, but rather simply that conflict and war have imposed themselves on the physical area in which I chose to make my life (a choice made for reasons unrelated to conflict), and my personal biography and the biographies of those closest to me, both family and close friends, have been shaped by the experience of war and its legacy. Anyway, I hope readers will find my choices and the explanations of them to be of interest.

https://shepherd.com/best-books/the-human-impact-of-war