Matt Bors

David Axe

Read David Axe's blogs and other content on the Penguin Community. The war memoir as graphic novel-an utterly unforgettable and highly original look at war in the 21st century. Street battles with spears and arrows in sweltering East Timor. Bone- jarring artillery duels in Afghanistan's mountains. Long patrols on the sandy wastes of southern Iraq. For four years, war was life for David Axe. He was alternately bored out of his mind and completely terrified. It was strangely addictive. As a correspondent for The Washington Times, C-SPAN and BBC Radio, Axe flew from conflict to conflict, reveling in death, danger, and destruction abroad while, back in D.C., his apartment gathered dust, his plants died, and his relationships withered. War reporting was physically, emotionally, and financially draining-and disillusioning. Loosely based on the web comic of the same name, with extensive new material, War Is Boring takes us to Lebanon and Somalia; to arms bazaars across the United States; to Detroit, as David tries to reconnect with his family-and to Chad, as David attempts to bring attention to the Darfur genocide. Watch a Video

Bored Stiff, Scared to Death in the World's Worst War Zones

War is Boring

bored stiff, scared to death in the world's worst war zones

Chasing Conflict in an Era of Peace

Shadow Wars

In Army of God, war correspondent David Axe collaborates with illustrator Tim Hamilton to create the first-ever graphic account of a conflict that has become a global phenomenon. The controversial Kony2012 campaign and documentaries have already spilled out of social media and into high school and college campuses, raising awareness among a broad audience. Army of God tells the rest of the story, from the chaos Kony has left behind to the long campaign to defeat him for good. --publicaffairsbooks.com

Joseph Kony's war in Central Africa

Army of God

WarfareÆs evolution, especially since 2001, has irrevocably changed the meaning of war. In the twentieth centuryùhumankindÆs bloodiestù231 million people died in armed conflicts. Battlefield deaths since then have been steadily declining, despite the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and by 2012 less than 1 person in a million dies in war every year. This drastic change has led some academics to label our era one of peace, recalling the erroneously named ôHundred YearsÆ Peaceö or ôPax Britannicaö of the nineteenth century, which nonetheless saw many violent conflicts. But war hasnÆt gone extinct. It has merely evolved. In Shadow Wars, journalist David Axe tells the story of the new war eraùone of insurgents and counterinsurgents, terrorists and their hunters, pirates, mercenaries, smugglers, and slavers wreaking havoc on regions where conditions are brutal, people are poor, governments are weak, and the world rarely pays attention. Axe shows us what war has become in our era of peace. The mainstream media, meanwhile, ignores it. This book profoundly challenges readersÆ conceptions of war and peace in the twenty-first century.

Kevin Knodell

The 'Stan is a collection of short comics about America's longest war. Individual stories highlight different perspectives—one through the eyes of a Taliban ambassador and others through the eyes of Afghan and U.S. Army soldiers—but every account highlights the human element of war. The tales in this book—based on reporting by David Axe and Kevin Knodell and drawn by artist Blue Delliquanti—are all true and took place in roughly the first decade of the U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan. While the stories are from the recent past, The 'Stan is still very much about Afghanistan's and America's present—and likely their future.

David Axe

About

Books

Join the club