I Wouldn't Start from Here

Starred review from February 15, 2009
The opening decade of the twenty-first century may go down in history as one of the deadliest and bloodiest on record. From Belfast to Basra, Kosovo to Cameroon, the globe is littered with conflicts between nations and tribes, superpowers and renegade republics. There are cases where the cause is known and identifiable; others that are more nebulous and confused. Some escalate into full-scale war, while others simmer as enduring hostilities. What ultimately unites them, claims Mueller, is the search for identity. An erstwhile rock critic, Mueller took the leap into battlefield journalism to investigate the ways in which a chaotic and tenacious concept of nationality can infuse a countrys individual citizens with the fervor to kill or die in its defense. Having been wounded and imprisoned in pursuit of this underlying truth through 70 of the worlds most volatile regimes, Mueller examines the daily lives of both a new breed of revolutionary and an old guard whose rhetoric is steeped in centuries-old traditions. Peppered with trenchant observations that reflect a nimble, cut-to-the-chase practicality, Muellers interviews with everyone from terrorist warlords to international peacemakers are refreshingly irreverent yet astute.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)