Jonathan Schell

Throughout history civilisation has been shaped by war. Now, after a century of unprecedented devastation, it seems humankind is preparing to embark on another cycle of violence. Are we condemned to be in a state of perpetual warfare?Jonathan Schell has consistently been one of the most influential and eloquent voices in the debate about global warfare and the arms race. His bestseller, The Fate of the Earth, focussed on the case for nuclear disarmament and may have halped shape two decades of thinking about man?s relationship with agents of destruction. Now, as the international order is once more in a state of upheaval, Schell has written another provocative book that aims to point the way out of the bloodshed of the twentieth century.Schell strives to show how the underlying dynamics of history have often been shaped not by military actions, but by battles for the hearts and minds of the people. His close re-examinations of the British, French and Russian revolutions, the collapse of Soviet power in eastern Europe in 1989, the war in Vietnam and other key moments in history illustrate how all these events can be understood in a new way when viewed through the prism of non-violence. Schell?s aim is to show that there is, and always has been, an alternative to war as a way of directing human society.

Throughout history civilization has been shaped by war. Now, after a century of unprecedented devastation, it seems humankind is preparing to embark on another cycle of violence. Are we condemned to be in a state of perpetual warfare? In this lucid, impassioned, provocative book Schell shows how the underlying dynamics of history have often been shaped not by military actions, but by battles for the hearts and minds of the people. His close re-examinations of the British, French and Russian revolutions, the collapse of Soviet power in eastern Europe in 1989, the war in Vietnam and other key moments in history illustrate how all these events can be understood in a new way when viewed through the prism of non-violence. Now that recent events in Iraq have borne out the force of Schell's arguments - that it is not always the military battles that matter most - this inspiring book shows that there is, and always has been, an alternative to war as a way of directing human society.

Jonathan Schell describe en este ensayo una vía para salir del baño de sangre del siglo XX. Sus detallados análisis de las revoluciones francesa y rusa, de la guerra en Vietnam o del desmoronamiento del poder sovietico ilustran como, con frecuencia, la dinamica de la historia no ha sido determinada por las acciones militares sino por las batallas para conquistar las mentes y los corazones de la gente. Este libro deja bien claro que existe (siempre ha existido) una alternativa a la guerra.

With a new introduction by Wallace Shawn, a classic work of war reportage that describes, with unblinking vision, the systematic leveling of a Vietnamese village by American troops.In January 1967, as President Lyndon Johnson sent more forces to the war in Vietnam, the US military began what was to be the largest ground operation of the entire conflict. Not far from Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, and close to the Cambodian border was an area known as the Iron Triangle, long under Viet Cong control. Operation Cedar Falls set out to eliminate that guerrilla threat by sealing off the region, emptying its villages, and leveling the surrounding jungle. The local population would be transferred to model "New Life Villages" under US surveillance.The village of Ben Suc was the Americans first target, and Jonathan Schell, a reporter at the start of his career, accompanied them there. He witnessed the destruction of the village; the frantic efforts of young soldiers to figure out who was or wasnt a foe; the destruction of peoples homes and possessions; and the chaotic transfer of women, children, old men, and livestock to a refugee camp where no preparations had been made for their arrival. He described it all in measured tones and unflinching detail. As a cautionary tale about the unintended and devastating consequences of military occupation, The Village of Ben Suc remains unequaled. "Schells book might have been the crystal ball that could have led American policymakers to realize that quasi-imperial American interventions of this type could not succeed in the contemporary world, and if the policymakers had read Schells book and studied it carefully, who knows, maybe a million or more Vietnamese lives could have been saved, along with the lives of fifty thousand American soldiers, along with countless lives in Afghanistan and Iraq." From Wallace Shawns Introduction.

In The Military Half, legendary Vietnam War reporter for The New Yorker Jonathan Schell details the devastating effects of American bombings and ground operations on the provinces of Quang Ngai and Quang Tin in South Vietnam. Schell provides first-hand accounts of the bombing runs and how they contributed to the destruction of the two provinces, giving a new generation of Americans an inside look at why the Vietnam War, years after its conclusion, is still a hot topic of debate in our country.

BEN SUC was a relatively prosperous farming village thirty miles from Saigon, on the edge of the Iron Triangle, the formidable Vietcong stronghold. It had been pacified many times, but because of security leaks no Vietcong were ever captured, and it always reverted to them. Therefore on January 8, 1967, American forces launched a surprise assault kept secret even from their South Vietnamese allies. The plan was to envelop the village, to seal it off, to remove its inhabitants, to destroy its every physical trace, and to level the surrounding jungle. Jonathan Schell accompanied the operation from its beginning to its successful but dismal end, and reports it in depth as he saw it. This time no one slipped away. The story of the bewildering task of separating the V.C. from ordinary villagers is the dramatic core of the first part of this book. The 3,500 villagers were moved to a refugee camp in Phu Loi, a barren, treeless safe area, with only what possessions they could carry. The bulldozers went to work and flattened every building. For security reasons no advance preparations had been made, and the move became a human and administrative nightmare. The people of Ben Suc were farmers, and there was nothing for them to do at Phu Loi, Mr. Schell offers vivid portraits of one individual after anotherwomen, children, old menas they are pacified and sink into apathy and despair. Here is an overwhelmingly affective narrative of American skill and good intentions squandered in a cause made hopeless by misunderstanding, by resistant traditions, and by cultural gaps not only between ourselves and the villagers, but between them and the Saigon government. Mr. Schells report is devastating.

Más de una década después de su finalización, la guerra de Vietnam se niega a descansar en la timba de la historia. Sus cómos y porqués exasperan a la comunidad académica, su legado molesta y divide a los politicos: ¿quien era el verdadero enemigo? ¿A quien se enfrentaba el poderoso ejercito norteamericano, a una simple guerrrilla o a un movimiento politico global y coordinado? ¿Cual era la naturaleza de la guerra? Todas estas preguntas convergen, al final, en una sola: ¿como se explica que el pais que se consideraba a si mismo el mas poderoso del planeta fuera incapaz de imponerse a las fuerzas agrupadas en un pais pequeño, pobre y atrasado como Vietnam?