War is Personal - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0292704410 ISBN 13: 9780292704411

Publisher: University of Texas Press, 2010

Synopsis

By early 2006, the war in Iraq was entering its fourth year. No weapons of mass destruction had been found. Tens of thousands of Iraqis were reported injured and dead, more than two thousand American soldiers had been killed, and rates of depression and suicide were rising among American military personnel. Yet all the while, Congress and the media debated what the conflict was costing America in image and treasure, and costing the president in popularity. Troubled by the public's growing indifference to the ongoing horrors in Iraq and critical of his own inaction, acclaimed photographer Eugene Richards began documenting the lives of Americans who had been profoundly affected by the Iraq war.

Bold and epic in scope, War Is Personal is a compilation of fifteen real-life stories that speak of what it means to go to war, to sacrifice, to wait, to hope, to mourn, to remember, to live on when those you love are gone. With heartbreaking photographs and texts, Richards records the funeral of twenty-two-year-old Army sergeant Princess Samuels and profiles veterans such as Tomas Young, who was shot in the spine and paralyzed four days into his tour in Iraq. Richards documents parents such as Carlos Arredondo, who grew so distraught upon hearing of his son's death in combat that he attacked and destroyed a Marine Corps van, severely injuring himself, and Nelida Bagley, whose massively brain-injured son requires nearly round-the-clock care.

Uncompromising and sure to be controversial, War Is Personal is a study of lives in upheaval and a chronicle of greatly differing attitudes, experiences, and understandings of what it means for Americans to go to war.

About this title

About the Author

One of the world’s foremost documentary photographers, EUGENE RICHARDS has received many of photography’s prestigious honors, including the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts grants, the Leica Medal of Excellence, the Leica Oskar Barnack Award, the Olivier Rebbot Award, and the Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Journalism Award for the coverage of the disadvantaged. He has published fifteen books, including Dorchester Days; Exploding into Life; Americans We; Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue; The Fat Baby; A Procession of Them; and The Blue Room. Richards’s photographs have appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times Magazine, Esquire, National Geographic, Time, Newsweek, the New Yorker, People, and Life.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0292704410
• ISBN 13: 9780292704411
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 239