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From one of the finest journalists of our time comes a definitive, boots-on-the-ground dispatch from the front lines of the conflict in Ukraine.
Ever since Ukraine's violent 2014 revolution, followed by Russia's annexation of Crimea, the country has been at war. Misinformation reigns, more than two million people have been displaced, and Ukrainians fight one another on a second front - the crucial war against corruption.
With In Wartime, Tim Judah lays bare the events that have turned neighbors against one another and mired Europe's second-largest country in a conflict seemingly without end.
In Lviv, Ukraine's western cultural capital, mothers tend the graves of sons killed on the other side of the country. On the Maidan, the square where the protests that deposed President Yanukovych began, pamphleteers, recruiters, buskers, and mascots compete for attention. In Donetsk, civilians who cheered Russia's President Putin find their hopes crushed as they realize they have been trapped in the twilight zone of a frozen conflict.
Judah talks to everyone from politicians to poets, pensioners, and historians. Listening to their clashing explanations, he interweaves their stories to create a sweeping, tragic portrait of a country fighting a war of independence from Russia - twenty-five years after the collapse of the USSR.
"Starred Review. Judah's special and timely book will provide lay readers with an apt introduction to Ukraine, and specialists will appreciate its atypical yet enlightening approach and its insights into the social aspects of ongoing conflicts. Maps & photos." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. An enlightening, timely study of a misunderstood region of the world." - Kirkus
"This book provides a new look at the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and how Western interest has waned. It will appeal to those seeking to understand the area's history, present, and possible future on a more personal level." - Library Journal
"A compelling and acute piece of contemporary reportage." - The London Review of Books (UK)
"Haunting ... Timely ... Judah concentrates skilfully and affectingly on the human cost of manoeuvres in Ukraine. He seldom makes his own thoughts and opinions seem intrusive, instead letting his eloquent and compassionate subjects give a far greater insight into the horror and privation." - The Observer (UK)
"The strength of Judah's In Wartime lies in the depth, range and balance of his reportage and his eye for telling details." - Financial Times (UK)
"A kaleidoscopic portrait ... Judah Looks at the present - what Ukraine looks and feels like now. He criss-crosses the country from the Russian-speaking east to the Ukrainian-speaking west." - The Independent (UK)
"Judah has carved out a reputation as one of Europe's best writers on the Balkans. His job description should be something like History Wars Correspondent." - The Times (UK)
"Visceral, gripping, heart breaking and often shocking, based on interviews with witnesses and victims on the ground, In Wartime is both astute political analysis and vivid war reportage of what's really happening in the dirty war in Ukraine by a veteran observer of the Balkan wars who truly understands the complexities and nuances of the wars on Europe's peripheries." - Simon Sebag Montefiore
"Tim Judah has got a lot closer to the war in eastern Ukraine than most western reporters - close enough to be able to convey vividly to readers the smells and sounds of such strange, screwed-up oddities as the Donetsk People's Republic, the Russian-backed splinter state." - Niall Ferguson
"[Tim Judah] does not tell us what to think about war but instead teaches us how: with courage, humility, attention to human detail, and admirable historical intuition." - Timothy Snyder
This information about In Wartime was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Tim Judah is a reporter for The Economist. A graduate of the London School of Economics and of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, Judah worked for the BBC before covering the Balkan wars for The Times and other publications. He covered the war in Ukraine for The New York Review of Books. He lives in London with his wife and five children.
If you liked In Wartime, try these:
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Set in Ukraine, an eccentric scientist breeding rare snails crosses paths with sisters posing as members of the marriage industry to find their activist mother. As Russia invades, they embark on a wild journey with kidnapped bachelors and a last-of-its-kind snail. This darkly comic novel explores survival, love, and the impact of war.
Looking at Women Looking at War
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Destined to be a classic, a poet's powerful look at the courage of resistance.
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Set in Ukraine in 2013, I Will Die in a Foreign Land is an especially moving story of quiet beauty and love in a time of terror; an ambitious, intimate, and haunting portrait of human perseverance and empathy.
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