In his new book acclaimed author and war correspondent David Rieff contends that the use of military force to protect human rights or alleviate human suffering in the post-Cold War world has largely failed. Based on his extensive reporting from the front lines in Iraq, Kosovo, Rwanda, and other scenes of war and humanitarian crisis, Rieff traces the development of his own thinking on this critical issue over the past decade, from a powerful presumption in favor of armed intervention to a strong bias against it. Moreover, Rieff argues that the tendency toward the use of force for humanitarian ends is so widespread that it unites right and left, neoconservatives and human rights activists, humanitarian relief groups and civilian planners in the Pentagon. Above all, his experience of spending more than six months in Iraq has convinced him that the endless wars of altruism called for by human rights activists, or the string of wars of liberation proposed by American neoconservatives, can only lead to catastrophe.

RieffÌøåÀå_s most recent book, “A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis”, was named one of the 10 best books of the year by the LA Times Book Review and was a finalist for the Helen Bernstein Award. The Wall Street Journal called it ÌøåÀå_a withering, thought-provoking study;ÌøåÀå_ The New York Times Book Review termed it ÌøåÀå_hardheaded, sophisticated, and urgent;ÌøåÀå_ and Time magazine wrote that it was ÌøåÀå_a ruthlessly lucid book . . . hard, intelligent analysis.ÌøåÀå_

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
David Rieff is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine. He is the author of six previous books, including A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis and Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West. He has written regularly for many other magazines, including The New Yorker and The New Republic. He has been a visiting professor at Bard College and a teaching fellow at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. He lives in New York City.