100 Books about War

The ShortlistFollowing are additional titles that garnered multiple mentions:by George Orwell (1938) Journalist and novelist George Orwell’s personal account of experiences and reflections during the Spanish Civil War.

by Joseph Heller (1961) Now celebrating 50 years, this novel follows Captain John Yossarian and several other characters as they navigate bureaucracy, absurdity, injustice and greed during World War II.

by Robert Fisk (1990) An epic account of the Lebanese civil war and the crisis of Israel and Palestine during the eighties through the eyes of a fearless journalist.

by Mark Bowden (1999) An account of the urban battle that raged in Mogadishu, Somalia in 1993 between US Special forces and Somali militias headed by warlord Mohammed Farrah Aidid.

by Chris Hedges (2003) Drawing from his experience as a journalist and using references to combat literature, this book offers philosophical insights into war. 

by Sebastian Junger (2011) An on-the-ground account of a single platoon on a 15-month tour of duty in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley.

by Dominic Streatfeild (2011) A journalist interweaves eight narratives to offer an analytical portrait of the war on terror. 

by Fegal Keane (2010) A story of the catastrophic battle of Kohima, a remote Indian village by the Burmese border where Indian and British troops fight the Japanese army. 

by Karl Marlantes (2010) A novel about a young Lieutenant and his Bravo Company who are dropped rinto the middle of the Vietnam War.

by Bryan Mealer (2008) A journalist’s account of the brutal history of war, violence, rape and massacre in the Congo.  

by Drew Gilpin Faust (2008) An historical study, which attempts to understand the effects of the carnage caused by the American civil war.

by David Halberstam (2007) Published posthumously, this is an analytical account of the Korean War and also focuses on the politics of USA, USSR, China, North and South Korea at the time.  

by Chris Abani (2007) A Nigerian author’s novel about a young boy’s journey through a brutal West African war.

by Rajiv Chandrasekaran (2006) An account of the luxurious life inside Baghdad’s Green Zone which was the headquarters of the American occupation of Iraq. 

by Sebastian Barry (2005). Young Irish protagonist William Dunne leaves his family to enlist as a soldier and experiences the horrors of World War I. 

by Ha Jin (2004). A novel about the experiences of Chinese prisoners of war held by Americans during the Korean War through the eyes of Yu Yuan, a young Chinese army officer.

by Miljenko Jergovic (2004)  A debut collection of short stories about Sarajevo during the war. 

by Antony Beevor (2002) A narrative history of the Battle of Berlin in 1945 and the defeat of the German army which ended World War II. 

by Yasmina Khadra (1999) A novel about civil war in nineties Algeria by the notorious author who writes under a female pen name. 

by Isis Chang (1997)A non-fiction account of the massacre and atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army in Nanking, China during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

by Mark Danner (1994) A reconstruction of the events in El Mazote in El Salvador where a group of American-trained Salvadoran soldiers brutally massacred hundreds of villagers.

by Michael Ondaatje (1992) Set during World War II, this novel uses a non-linear narrative style to tell the stories of a burned Hungarian man, his Canadian nurse, a Canadian-Italian thief, and an Indian engineer of the British Army. 

by Tim O'Brien (1990) A collection of related stories about a platoon of American soldiers in the Vietnam War.

by Carlos Franqui (1982) A collection of letters, interviews and reflections about the Cuban revolution of 1959 complied by a true insider.  

by John Hackett (1982) A novel about a war breaking out between NATO and Warsaw Pact forces. 

by John Okada (1979). A novel about the aftermath of Japanese American internment during World War II that heralded a Japanese-American literature. 

by Bhisham Sahni (1974) An epic novel about the Partition of India in 1947.

by Barbara W. Tuchman (1972) A history of China from 1911 to World War II through the story of Joseph Stillwell, the military attaché to China from 1935-39.

by Assia Djebar (1962) A novel about the Algerian fight for independence against the French told through the interlocking narratives of different women in a small village.

by Cornelius Ryan (1959) A narrative account of D-Day, the first day of the World War II invasion of Normandy, this work brings together accounts from diaries, reports as well as official records.

by Nevil Shute (1957) A post-apocalyptic novel about the end of the world due to nuclear war set in Australia in 1963. 

by Prameodya Ananta Toer (1947) A novel by prolific Indonesian novelist written in Dutch labor camp about a young nationalist soldier who is betrayed by a fellow officer.

by Vera Brittain (1933) A memoir focusing on the impact of World War I on the lives women and middle class civilians in Great Britain.

by Ernst Friedrich (1924) This is a biographic sketch of Friedrich, a socialist who refused to serve in World War I and also contains a collection of gruesome photographs that reflect the reality of war. 

by Walt Whitman (1882) Prolific American poet’s intimate observations and reflections on the Civil War era and its aftermath.

(circa 3rd century BC) An Indian epic written in Sanskrit charts the dynastic struggle for the throne of Hastinapura. Internecine conflicts turn into a long and bloody war between family members. The Hindu holy book, The Bhagvad Gita is narrated by Krishna during this war.

Warscapes weighs in...

Advisory Board member Dinaw Mengestu focused on non-fiction titles which, he says, "I've found myself returning to during my own reporting." Mengestu picked three by Jean Hatzfield, a french journalist who has produced an astonishing range of work on Rwanda. He went there to report on the genocide in 1994 and eventually left his daily reporting job to focus solely on researching the region and the genocide's impact.

Mengestu's recommendations include:

by Jean Hatzfield.

by Mark Danner (2009). A seasoned journalist explores the consequences of American engagement with the world.

by Andrew Rice (2009) A journalist follows tribunals and truth commissions in Uganda seeking justice and catharsis in the aftermath of dictator Idi Amin.

by Horst Bienek (1978) A novel about a family of Polish and German origin in Silesia just before the outbreak of World War II.

by Khaled Hosseini (2007) The story of two Afghan women spanning the 1960s until 2003.

Warscapes Editors Bhakti Shringarpure & Michael Bronner chose novels, poems and non-fiction that mainly drew on conflicts from the last fifty years.

Novelist (and Advisory Board member) Nuruddin Farah's entire oeuvre is dedicated to exploring violence in his native Somalia from the dictatorship of Siad Barre until the ongoing civil war. An author of three trilogies and multiple other novels and essays, these titles offer a mere sampling

(1998) about the protagonist Kalaman whose search for his identity becomes a metaphor for the civil war.

by Ahmadou Kourouma (2002) A fictional memoir narrated by an unlikeable, ironic, nonchalant and bloodthirsty child soldier.

by Etel Adnan (1978) Seven narrators reveal the true story of Marie Rose Boulous who was abducted and executed by Christian militias during the Lebanese civil war. 

by Gloria Emerson (1972) Home from Vietnam, where she covered the war for The New York Times, Emerson’s withering dispatch from the US on the war’s lasting impact.

by Maaza Mengiste (2011) A novel about a family caught in the violence of the military coup of 1974 which overthrew the regime of Haile Selassie. 

by Frantz Fanon (1961) Dictated to his wife in a feverish three weeks before he died, this is a prophetic book about colonialism, revolution and violence.

by Graham Greene (1955) The quintessential anti-war novel based on Greene's experiences as a war correspondent in French Indochina from 1951-1954, foreshadowing the American disaster in Vietnam.

by Mouloud Feraoun (2000) Posthumously published journal about the daily life of people caught in a savage war.