We Chose to Speak of War and Strife: The World of the Foreign Correspondent

Simpson, John

ISBN 10: 1408872226 / ISBN 13: 9781408872222

Published by Bloomsbury Publishing, UK, 2016

About this Item

366pp; illustrated. Signed on title page by John Simpson with a personal dedication. Appears unread. Seller Inventory # 026420

Bibliographic Details

Title: We Chose to Speak of War and Strife: The ...

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing, UK

Publication Date: 2016

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Very Good

Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good

Signed: Signed by Author on Title Page

Edition: 1st Edition

About this title

Synopsis:

From distinguished foreign correspondent John Simpson, a fascinating history of what it is to risk life and limb to bring home news of the troubled world.

In corners of the globe where fault lines seethe into bloodshed and civil war, foreign correspondents have, since the early nineteenth century, been engaged in uncovering the latest news and--despite obstacles bureaucratic, political, violent--reporting it by whatever means available. It's a working life that is difficult, exciting and glamorous.

These stories from the last two hundred years celebrate an endangered tradition. Where once dispatches were trusted to the hands of a willing sea captain, telegraph operator or stranger in an airport queue prepared to spirit a can of undeveloped film back to London, today the digital realm has transformed the relaying of the news--if the work of gathering it in the field has changed little.

We Chose to Speak of War and Strife brings us pivotal moments in history--from the Crimean War to Tiananmen Square and Sarajevo--through the eyes of those who witnessed them, and the astonishing tales of what it took to report them. Weaving in the history of the great correspondents who went before him, such as Alan Moorhead, Martha Gellhorn, Hemingway and Charles Wheeler, and offering extraordinary accounts from Simpson's own lifetime on the frontlines, this is a deeply personal book from a master of the profession.

About the Author:

John Simpson is the BBC's World Affairs Editor. He has twice been the Royal Television Society's Journalist of the Year. He has also won three BAFTAs, including the Richard Dimbleby Award in 1991 and the News and Current Affairs award in 2000 for his coverage, with the BBC News team, of the Kosovo conflict. He has written four bestselling volumes of autobiography: Strange Places, Questionable People; A Mad World, My Masters; News from No Man's Land; and, most recently, Not Quite World's End. He has also written a childhood memoir, Days from a Different World, and an account of contemporary Iraq, The Wars Against Saddam. He lives in Oxford.