War and Moral Injury: A Reader - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1498296785 ISBN 13: 9781498296786

Publisher: Cascade Books, 2018

Synopsis

All royalties from the sale of this book are being donated to Soldier's Heart, www.soldiersheart.net. Moral Injury has been called the "signature wound" of today's wars. It is also as old as the human record of war, as evidenced in the ancient war epics of Greece, India, and the Middle East. But what exactly is Moral Injury? What are its causes and consequences? What can we do to prevent or limit its occurrence among those we send to war? And, above all, what can we do to help heal afflicted warriors? This landmark volume provides an invaluable resource for those looking for answers to these questions. Gathered here are some of the most far-ranging, authoritative, and accessible writings to date on the topic of Moral Injury. Contributors come from the fields of psychology, theology, philosophy, psychiatry, law, journalism, neuropsychiatry, classics, poetry, and, of course, the profession of arms. Their voices find common cause in informing the growing, international conversation on war and war's deepest and most enduring invisible wound. Few may want to have this myth-challenging, truth-telling conversation, but it is one we must have if we truly wish to help those we send to fight our wars.

About this title

Review:

"This brilliant, timely, and compelling collection of essays, poems, and reflections on the experience of war from those who fought the fight and are still fighting war's demons, sheds urgently needed light on the moral 'wounds' of our combat veterans and how we, our society, and especially faith organizations can reach out to assist them in their time of need."

--JOHN SCOTT, Major General (USA Retired), Deacon, Roman Catholic Church, Diocese of Phoenix, Arizona

 

"This book is a tremendous contribution to understanding Moral Injury, an impact of war largely unseen through ignorance or design. It should compel us individually and as nations to tackle mythologies contrived to glorify wars at the cost of the moral wellbeing of those sent to fight them--and to stop ignoring the costs to any nation's collective soul."

--JODY WILLIAMS, Nobel Peace Prize (1997), Founding Coordinator, International Campaign to Ban Landmines

 

"War and Moral Injury is not only a work from the conscience, but from the heart. This earnest and moving collection of essays, poems, memoirs and meditations gives us a much-needed view of what it is to be human in the face of war, of how we are not made to kill, and of how doing so injures the human soul. A stunning and essential book."

--HELEN BENEDICT, Columbia University, author of Wolf Season, Sand Queen, and The Lonely Soldier

 

"An invaluable guide on the path to a fuller understanding of Moral Injury."

--DAVID WOOD, Pulitzer Prize journalist whose most recent book, What Have We Done: The Moral Injury of Our Longest Wars, won the 2017 Dayton Literary Peace Prize

 

"The finest resource yet on Moral Injury, this collection--historical, literary, contemporary, scholarly, and experiential--offers us all deep knowledge to understand and address the suffering revealed in these pages.

--RITA NAKASHIMA BROCK, co-author of Soul Repair: Recovering from Moral Injury After War

About the Author:

Robert Emmet Meagher is Professor of Humanities, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA. His publications include numerous books, translations, and original plays, most recently Herakles Gone Mad: Rethinking Heroism in an Age of Endless War and Killing from the Inside Out: Moral Injury and Just War. Across many years he has served in a range of veteran-focused programs aimed at understanding and healing war's inner wounds, and since 2010 has led a VA literature seminar.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1498296785
• ISBN 13: 9781498296786
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 392
• Editor: Meagher Robert Emmet, Pryer Douglas A.