Journeys Through Modern Conflict

The Secret Life of War

A classic of war reportage. A defining book about the experience of conflict, for those living through it and those reporting it, distilled from a decade and a half on the world's frontlines.

An intelligent, deeply perceptive work drawn from nearly two decades of experience reporting conflict

Magnificent - this book should be required reading

Beaumont's account of war reporting in the Middle East is astonishing, not least for its careful detail and his self-searching honesty. A superb piece of work

Beaumont's book is on a different plane to the others and will outlast many of them

The Secret Life of War is an awesome read, the best enquiry into killing and suffering I've encountered. A plea for resolution, a document of brutal honesty, the bare truth: in it beats the pulse of being there in the throes of modern conflict

Beaumont is fluid and elegant in his description of war and its symptoms

Beaumont is a compassionate companion in this grim world of inverted values, who is prepared to reveal his own psychological damage as he sets about dismantling the myths of war and violence and laying out their formidable human cost

Beaumont writes beautifully and calmly, even when describing the fiercest and most emotive moments of war

Modern war is all about complexity and uncertainty, and in his accounts of his journeys through conflict, Beaumont certainly evokes this... Beaumont is evidently a brave and determined reporter

The Secret Life of War is readable and insightful on the often horrendous things Beaumont has seen... He gets us to the core of conflict with ruthless single-mindedness... He conveys the bloody chaos of the war zone in its stark and grim reality... Above all, Beaumont is refreshingly self-deprecating about his role as a reporter, both honest and realistic

Beaumont reaches beyond his peers to a wider readership' and uses 'his calmness, frankness, self-depreciation and sense of wonder in examining the raw emotions which fuel conflicts

The author succeeds magnificently - to such an extent that this book should be required reading for every student of international affairs, every enthusiastic armchair strategist and every aspiring entrant to the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst

With honesty and humility he diagnoses his own need to return to war the way a junkie feeds on heroin...It is a book from the heart, not a military analysis...one realises the book was a catharsis, a way for him to write his way out of the blackness. You close it and wish him peace

Peter Beaumont is the Foreign Affairs Editor of the Observer. He joined the paper in 1989 and has covered numerous conflicts and crises. He is the recipient of various awards including the One World Media Award, the Amnesty International Media award, and the George Orwell Prize for Journalism. He was educated at Hampton Grammar School and Keble College, Oxford and lives in London.

War has changed. In the past, states clashed and battles were fought between armies. Today superpowers are pitted against warlords. 
 
The Observer's chief foreign correspondent Peter Beaumont, takes us into the guts of modern conflict. He visits the bombed and abandoned home of Mullah Omar; discovers a deserted Al Qaeda camp where he finds documents describing a plan to attack London; talks to young bomb-throwers in a Rafah refugee camp. 
 
Unflinching and utterly gripping, The Secret Life of War is a deeply personal and defining vision of the inner, secret nature of modern war.

Peter Beaumont

Reflections on the Arab Spring

Peter Beaumont has been on the ground in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya as the 'Arab Spring' has blossomed. He has witnessed the uprisings in all their messy reality. In this ebook he explains what is going on in the region and explodes the myths that the uprisings can be interpreted as an easily explainable revolution. 
 
He draws linkages between the countries ruled over by authoritarian regimes that promise 'reform' which is actually impossible to deliver, the frustration and anger this has caused, and then how this fulminated and eventually exploded, triggering a domino effect across the region. 
 
BRAIN SHOTS is the pre-eminent source for high quality, short-form digital non-fiction. The Summer of Unrest series brings together stellar writers to explore the issues surrounding the austerity measures in the UK, uprisings in the Middle East and the nature of the protest movements springing up all over the world.

Peter Beaumont

Books by Peter Beaumont

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