“I couldn’t put it down. This book, written in an easy-to-read style, gets to the heart of the matter. The Pentagon (with an annual PR budget of more than $600 million) has a cardinal rule: Above all do not allow American families to actually see the death and destruction that our government is inflicting on mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters in other countries.”
—Ben Cohen, co-founder, Ben & Jerry’s
More than twenty years ago, 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan set into motion a hugely consequential shift in America’s foreign policy: a perpetual state of war that is almost entirely invisible to the American public. War Made Invisible exposes how this happened, and what its consequences are, from military and civilian casualties to drained resources at home.
From Iraq through Afghanistan and Syria and on to little-known deployments in a range of countries around the globe, the United States has been at perpetual war for at least the past two decades. Yet many of these forays remain off the radar of average Americans. Compliant journalists add to the smokescreen by providing narrow coverage of military engagements and by repeating the military’s talking points. Meanwhile, the increased use of high technology, air power, and remote drones has put distance between soldiers and the civilians who die.
Back at home, there’s so much secrecy around massive Pentagon budgets that receive bipartisan approval- despite policy makers struggling to fund domestic policies and agendas. Americans are stuck with the bill for an unrelenting war with no changes to policy at home, while Middle Eastern communities suffer with their lives for a war with seemingly no end. A war that Americans can put into the back of their minds- out of sight, out of mind. Necessary, timely, and unflinching, War Made Invisible is an eloquent moral call for counting the true costs of war.
Author Norman Solomon is joining us on the virtual Busboys stage to support his timely moral call for counting the true costs of war with conversation partner Trevor Timm. Copies of the book will be available for purchase before and during the event, so make sure to order your copy before we’re out of stock! Your purchase of the book includes shipping anywhere in the United States via USPS.
This event is free and open to all. Our program begins at 6:00 pm, and will be followed by an audience Q&A. Copies of WAR MADE INVISIBLE will be available for purchase before and during the event. Please note that this event is VIRTUAL and will be livestreamed.
We ask that guests RSVP in order to receive direct updates about the event from Busboys and Poets Books. All Busboys and Poets Books livestreams happen on our Facebook and Youtube pages.
Norman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His books include War Made Easy, Made Love, Got War, and War Made Invisible (The New Press). He lives in the San Francisco area.
Trevor Timm is a co-founder and the executive director of Freedom of the Press Foundation. He is a journalist, activist, and legal analyst whose writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Guardian, USA Today, The Atlantic, Al Jazeera, Foreign Policy, Harvard Law and Policy Review, and Politico. He also writes a column on press freedom for Columbia Journalism Review. Trevor formerly worked as an activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Before that, he helped the longtime General Counsel of The New York Times, James Goodale, write a book on the Pentagon Papers and the First Amendment. He received his J.D. from New York Law School. In 2013, he received the Hugh Hefner First Amendment Award for journalism.
