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Draw Your Weapons
A single book might not change the world. But this utterly original meditation on art and war might transform the way you see the world—and that makes all the difference. “How to live in the face of so much suffering? What difference can one person make in this beautiful, imperfect, and imperiled world?” Through a dazzling combination of memoir, history, reporting, visual culture, literature, and theology, Sarah Sentilles offers an impassioned defense of life lived by peace and principle. It is a literary collage with an urgent hope at its that art might offer tools for remaking the world. In Draw Your Weapons, Sentilles tells the true stories of Howard, a conscientious objector during World War II, and Miles, a former prison guard at Abu Ghraib, and in the process she challenges conventional thinking about how war is waged, witnessed, and resisted. The pacifist and the soldier both create art in response to Howard builds a violin; Miles paints portraits of detainees. With echoes of Susan Sontag and Maggie Nelson, Sentilles investigates images of violence from the era of slavery to the drone age. In doing so, she wrestles with some of our most profound What does it take to inspire compassion? What impact can one person have? How should we respond to violence when it feels like it can’t be stopped? Praise for Draw Your Weapons“A collage of death, savagery, torture, and trauma across generations and continents, Sarah Sentilles’s Draw Your Weapons is painful to read, hard to put down, and impossible to forget.”— The Oprah Magazine “In her dynamic, impressionistic (and cleverly titled) book, Sentilles focuses on language and images–particularly photography–and considers what role they play in peace and war. Eschewing a traditional narrative, Sentilles focuses on two men–one a World War II conscience objector who makes violins, and the other an Abu Ghraib prison guard who paints detainee portraits. In brief, delicately layered pieces rather than a narrative, Sentilles has created a collage that explores art, violence, and what it means to live a principled life.”—The National Book Review “It’s the kind of book that, after reading just half, you have to stop and catch your breath, because reading it changes you, not just in terms of what you know–it changes the way you think and how you feel–so much so that, halfway in, I wanted to go back and start again because I felt I was already a different person to the person I was when I began.”—Turnaround
281 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 3, 2017
48 people are currently reading
2188 people want to read
About the author
Sarah Sentilles
7 books149 followersSarah Sentilles is the author of A Church of Her Own and Taught by America. She is a scholar of religion and earned a bachelor's degree in literature from Yale and a master's of divinity and a doctorate in theology from Harvard. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 114 reviews
August 24, 2017
An amazement, Sentilles's fractured meditation on art and war and the deep pangs of suffering that reverberate from them is my favorite nonfiction book of the year. With a style that seems to be illuminated by the art (photography) theory of Susan Sontag, Walter Benjamin, and John Berger, Sentilles go in many deep directions at once throughout this dazzler. Her personal stories about her friendships with a dying WWII-era pacifist and a former soldier who worked at the Abu Ghraib prison are the glue that holds all the anecdotes, factoids, and shards of poetic thoughts together. It's reminiscent of Nick Flynn and David Shields at time, but with so many layers of empathy and sad wonder about war. Knowing that Sentilles was once studying to be a priest only gave me a hint of how deeply she feels about humanity and peace. This book should make her a saint. I feel changed by Draw Your Weapons and I'll never forget it.
January 8, 2018
Loved this - a hard to describe meditation on violence, photography, art and life. Sentilles draws together seemingly unconnected sources and somehow creates something moving, unsettling and deeply humane. Probably one to read a few times.
January 8, 2021
The following book reviews have been shared by Text Publishing – publisher of Draw Your Weapons
‘Sentilles combines fragments of narrative, memoir and journalism to plot a peripatetic path through contemporary debates about war and suffering. She considers whether it is possible for art- and image-making to re-engage viewers who feel overwhelmed or apathetic, while restoring dignity to those affected by conflict. In a book with no images, Sentilles interrogates many photographic works that depict violence and suffering, to grapple with the question: do we look or look away?…Sentilles argues that the suffering doesn’t go away just because we don’t look. The really important question is not whether we look, but what we do with what we see.’
Inside Story
‘An unflinching yet poetic interrogation of the roles that imagery, language and everyday behaviours play in abetting oppression, violence and injustice, Draw Your Weapons confirms that a life of peace and principle is a human possibility.’
Peter Mares, Griffith Review
‘Two very different photographs send the author on a quest to understand the relationship between compassion and violence. The result is the conversation that I wish we, as a nation, could have, not just to bridge the gap between veterans and civilians, or to find some common ground between conservatives and liberals, but to lay out a realistic plan for our continued survival.’
LitHub
‘An intriguing meditation on violence, imagery and language.’
Ashleigh Wilson, Australian, Books of the Year 2017
‘Had I not been asked to review Sarah Sentilles’s Draw Your Weapons for these pages, I wouldn’t have read it; I would have skimmed the blurb and scoffed at its idealism. “What difference can one person make in this beautiful, imperfect, and imperilled world?” Sentilles asks. This of all years, I am mightily thankful I was challenged to confront that question, and form my own answer. Her book is a vital antidote to political despondency and a testament to the transformative power of art.’
Beejay Silcox, Australian, Books of the Year 2017
‘A unique and necessary book that makes a passionate, thought-stoking argument.’
John Jeremiah Sullivan
‘Now more than ever, the world needs a book like Draw Your Weapons. With mastery, urgency and great courage, Sarah Sentilles investigates the histories of art, violence, war and human survival. In her haunting and absorbing narrative, the act of storytelling itself becomes a matter of life and death.’
Ruth Ozeki
‘Draw Your Weapons is as much about peace as it is about war; it is as much about life as it is about death…You will be riveted, educated, implicated, and changed by this book.’
Emily Rapp
‘A beautiful, harrowing, and moving collage that portrays the making of art as a powerful response to making war. Every reader will feel profoundly changed by it.’
Alice Elliott Dark
‘Fearless, stirring, rhythmic, this book pulses with energy and is full of insights, dark yet ultimately hopeful.’
Nick Flynn
‘A beautiful, haunting book so original that it is a genre unto itself—a poem, a sermon, a polemic, a memoir, a narrative. I won’t be able to think of our era of constant conflict without recalling Sentilles’s lessons, her imagery, and her prophetic voice.’
Franklin Foer
‘Draw Your Weapons works as a highly original corrective to this impulse towards inaction…Sentilles’ approach is a refreshing and instructive take on this era of perennial warfare.’
Readings
‘Sentilles delivers a learned, poetic, and interdisciplinary assessment of the ways in which the photographic image has been abused and weaponised, while also suggesting ways in which the arts can help serve as an antidote to this problem.’
Publishers Weekly
‘Sentilles, a would-be priest who dropped out of divinity school to pursue the study of art history searches for the role of art in an age of perennial warfare. She deftly and gently weaves together disparate topics—photography, Japanese internment, Abu Ghraib, sainthood, to name a few—so that I felt like an awakened genius at the close of each section.’
Literary Hub
‘In Draw Your Weapons, American critical theorist Sarah Sentilles assembles the case for art as a weapon against weapons. It’s a premise that may sound painfully idealistic, but to dismiss the book on that basis is to miss a thoughtful conversation with an author whose eyes are wide open…In a culture where the arts are too often dismissed as frivolous, Sentilles’s work offers a robust and necessary retort, an important reminder that “the world is made and can be unmade. Remade.”’
Australian
‘Sentilles has examined these issues so closely, I am inescapably interested in her opinions. At the same time I also appreciate her answer to a student, who, reacting to one of the many photographs of war and violence that Sentilles shows her classes, asked, “But what are we supposed to do?” Sentilles responded: “I don’t know.”’
Saturday Paper
‘Though Sontag’s words—“No one…Not even pacifists”—fundamentally shape the book, and it proves nothing if not how pervasive and intractable the culture of war is, Draw Your Weapons left me feeling rather like Virginia Woolf. It is an impossibly heavy book to read, as even the beautiful in it is tainted by its root cause, but it is heavy because it is challenging and brilliant and fierce. Readers will carry that weight and be better for it.’
Rumpus
‘Sarah Sentilles’ Draw Your Weapons is one of the most erudite, original, and thought-provoking books I have ever read. A philosophical and moral meditation on pain, torture, and the violence of war—part memoir, part history, even a kind of secular prayer—this book asks us to look at terrible human darkness while also celebrating the ways in which love, connectedness, and the making of art nourish and redeem the human spirit.’
Australian Book Review
‘A masterpiece of understatement, allusion and wily composition.’
Michael McGirr, Sydney Morning Herald
‘A sincere and intelligent read.’
BMA Magazine
‘A formally elegant and intellectually rigorous argument for peace…Sentilles’ book inspires us to be more than we are, to live beyond our historical moment. Not a call to arms so much as a call to the writers’ pen.’
Geordie Williamson, Best Books of 2017, Australian Book Review
‘A complex and original reaction to violence, warfare, and conscientious objection: I’m still thinking about it, still dipping back into it.’
Patrick Allington, Best Books of 2017, Australian Book Review
‘Sentilles mounts her argument with an accumulation of detail, employing metaphor rather than polemic. Her examination of drone warfare is especially powerful.’
Suzy Freeman-Greene, Best Books of 2017, Australian Book Review
‘Sentilles's book is a challenging read full of snippets thoughts and reflections. It cuts between time place and character. Part memoir part exploration it avoids neatly-cut explanations or definitive conclusions it shows, suggests and probes...In an age consumed with its own reflection this is a timely work and I highly recommend it.’
Radio National, 2017’s Best Summer Reads
‘Poetic and furious.’
Fiona Wright, Sydney Morning Herald’s Year in Reading
‘These are weighty subjects but the author’s touch is so light that I was barely conscious of reading…Sentilles does not belabour her points but her silences are impactful.’
Overland
‘A book to dog-ear, write all over, bookmark, re-read and remember...Draw Your Weapons offered something unlike anything I’d ever read before, forever changing my interactions with image, language and the world.’
Broadsheet
‘Sentilles combines fragments of narrative, memoir and journalism to plot a peripatetic path through contemporary debates about war and suffering. She considers whether it is possible for art- and image-making to re-engage viewers who feel overwhelmed or apathetic, while restoring dignity to those affected by conflict. In a book with no images, Sentilles interrogates many photographic works that depict violence and suffering, to grapple with the question: do we look or look away?…Sentilles argues that the suffering doesn’t go away just because we don’t look. The really important question is not whether we look, but what we do with what we see.’
Inside Story
‘An unflinching yet poetic interrogation of the roles that imagery, language and everyday behaviours play in abetting oppression, violence and injustice, Draw Your Weapons confirms that a life of peace and principle is a human possibility.’
Peter Mares, Griffith Review
‘Two very different photographs send the author on a quest to understand the relationship between compassion and violence. The result is the conversation that I wish we, as a nation, could have, not just to bridge the gap between veterans and civilians, or to find some common ground between conservatives and liberals, but to lay out a realistic plan for our continued survival.’
LitHub
‘An intriguing meditation on violence, imagery and language.’
Ashleigh Wilson, Australian, Books of the Year 2017
‘Had I not been asked to review Sarah Sentilles’s Draw Your Weapons for these pages, I wouldn’t have read it; I would have skimmed the blurb and scoffed at its idealism. “What difference can one person make in this beautiful, imperfect, and imperilled world?” Sentilles asks. This of all years, I am mightily thankful I was challenged to confront that question, and form my own answer. Her book is a vital antidote to political despondency and a testament to the transformative power of art.’
Beejay Silcox, Australian, Books of the Year 2017
‘A unique and necessary book that makes a passionate, thought-stoking argument.’
John Jeremiah Sullivan
‘Now more than ever, the world needs a book like Draw Your Weapons. With mastery, urgency and great courage, Sarah Sentilles investigates the histories of art, violence, war and human survival. In her haunting and absorbing narrative, the act of storytelling itself becomes a matter of life and death.’
Ruth Ozeki
‘Draw Your Weapons is as much about peace as it is about war; it is as much about life as it is about death…You will be riveted, educated, implicated, and changed by this book.’
Emily Rapp
‘A beautiful, harrowing, and moving collage that portrays the making of art as a powerful response to making war. Every reader will feel profoundly changed by it.’
Alice Elliott Dark
‘Fearless, stirring, rhythmic, this book pulses with energy and is full of insights, dark yet ultimately hopeful.’
Nick Flynn
‘A beautiful, haunting book so original that it is a genre unto itself—a poem, a sermon, a polemic, a memoir, a narrative. I won’t be able to think of our era of constant conflict without recalling Sentilles’s lessons, her imagery, and her prophetic voice.’
Franklin Foer
‘Draw Your Weapons works as a highly original corrective to this impulse towards inaction…Sentilles’ approach is a refreshing and instructive take on this era of perennial warfare.’
Readings
‘Sentilles delivers a learned, poetic, and interdisciplinary assessment of the ways in which the photographic image has been abused and weaponised, while also suggesting ways in which the arts can help serve as an antidote to this problem.’
Publishers Weekly
‘Sentilles, a would-be priest who dropped out of divinity school to pursue the study of art history searches for the role of art in an age of perennial warfare. She deftly and gently weaves together disparate topics—photography, Japanese internment, Abu Ghraib, sainthood, to name a few—so that I felt like an awakened genius at the close of each section.’
Literary Hub
‘In Draw Your Weapons, American critical theorist Sarah Sentilles assembles the case for art as a weapon against weapons. It’s a premise that may sound painfully idealistic, but to dismiss the book on that basis is to miss a thoughtful conversation with an author whose eyes are wide open…In a culture where the arts are too often dismissed as frivolous, Sentilles’s work offers a robust and necessary retort, an important reminder that “the world is made and can be unmade. Remade.”’
Australian
‘Sentilles has examined these issues so closely, I am inescapably interested in her opinions. At the same time I also appreciate her answer to a student, who, reacting to one of the many photographs of war and violence that Sentilles shows her classes, asked, “But what are we supposed to do?” Sentilles responded: “I don’t know.”’
Saturday Paper
‘Though Sontag’s words—“No one…Not even pacifists”—fundamentally shape the book, and it proves nothing if not how pervasive and intractable the culture of war is, Draw Your Weapons left me feeling rather like Virginia Woolf. It is an impossibly heavy book to read, as even the beautiful in it is tainted by its root cause, but it is heavy because it is challenging and brilliant and fierce. Readers will carry that weight and be better for it.’
Rumpus
‘Sarah Sentilles’ Draw Your Weapons is one of the most erudite, original, and thought-provoking books I have ever read. A philosophical and moral meditation on pain, torture, and the violence of war—part memoir, part history, even a kind of secular prayer—this book asks us to look at terrible human darkness while also celebrating the ways in which love, connectedness, and the making of art nourish and redeem the human spirit.’
Australian Book Review
‘A masterpiece of understatement, allusion and wily composition.’
Michael McGirr, Sydney Morning Herald
‘A sincere and intelligent read.’
BMA Magazine
‘A formally elegant and intellectually rigorous argument for peace…Sentilles’ book inspires us to be more than we are, to live beyond our historical moment. Not a call to arms so much as a call to the writers’ pen.’
Geordie Williamson, Best Books of 2017, Australian Book Review
‘A complex and original reaction to violence, warfare, and conscientious objection: I’m still thinking about it, still dipping back into it.’
Patrick Allington, Best Books of 2017, Australian Book Review
‘Sentilles mounts her argument with an accumulation of detail, employing metaphor rather than polemic. Her examination of drone warfare is especially powerful.’
Suzy Freeman-Greene, Best Books of 2017, Australian Book Review
‘Sentilles's book is a challenging read full of snippets thoughts and reflections. It cuts between time place and character. Part memoir part exploration it avoids neatly-cut explanations or definitive conclusions it shows, suggests and probes...In an age consumed with its own reflection this is a timely work and I highly recommend it.’
Radio National, 2017’s Best Summer Reads
‘Poetic and furious.’
Fiona Wright, Sydney Morning Herald’s Year in Reading
‘These are weighty subjects but the author’s touch is so light that I was barely conscious of reading…Sentilles does not belabour her points but her silences are impactful.’
Overland
‘A book to dog-ear, write all over, bookmark, re-read and remember...Draw Your Weapons offered something unlike anything I’d ever read before, forever changing my interactions with image, language and the world.’
Broadsheet
October 21, 2017
Her collage-style writing reminded me of both Eduardo Galeano & Kurt Vonnegut; the style fit her musings & topics very well. It's hard to explain the breadth & scope of this work, from small notes of individual moments, art, perception, death, life, God, photography, peace, soldiers, objectors, freedoms, to quantum physics, photography, & more. A call not only for action but also thought, not only seeing but perceiving.
September 6, 2017
Draw Your Weapons was a non-fiction novel thrust into my hands on Love Your Bookshop day. Something different to try, I was so glad I went out of my comfort zone. A difficult one to summarise as it is nothing like anything else I have read. A collection of anecdotes, snippets of information about everything from war and violence to art and photography to psychology and theology. This book examines the relationship we have with violence and war and how it interacts with all these mediums and theories about how we relate to it. Plus there are personal stories from the author and her experiences with several people who have travelled these paths.
This book was compelling, fascinating and heart-breaking. This book may kill your faith in humanity a little but the content is so important and something we all should consider at some point. You want to race your way through, consume it all at once but also you know that you want to savour it, linger over the concepts, drawing meaning from the words. I will warn you, if you read it your Google history may end up looking a little dodgy. I found myself googling waterboarding, Nazi conspirators and internment camps for the Japanese during WWII, just to name a few.
Draw Your Weapons is something that you can read over and over and learn a little more from it each time. As I have mentioned the format is unlike anything else I have read before. The paragraphs may seem random at times but it somehow all works together perfectly. This is an exceptional piece of work, one of the most thought-provoking tinges I have read and I'm so glad it found it's way into my hands. I know my descriptions don't really do it justice, it is such a hard book to encapsulate in a few paragraphs but I would urge everyone to pick this one up immediately. I give Draw Your Weapons five bombs ready to blow.
This book was compelling, fascinating and heart-breaking. This book may kill your faith in humanity a little but the content is so important and something we all should consider at some point. You want to race your way through, consume it all at once but also you know that you want to savour it, linger over the concepts, drawing meaning from the words. I will warn you, if you read it your Google history may end up looking a little dodgy. I found myself googling waterboarding, Nazi conspirators and internment camps for the Japanese during WWII, just to name a few.
Draw Your Weapons is something that you can read over and over and learn a little more from it each time. As I have mentioned the format is unlike anything else I have read before. The paragraphs may seem random at times but it somehow all works together perfectly. This is an exceptional piece of work, one of the most thought-provoking tinges I have read and I'm so glad it found it's way into my hands. I know my descriptions don't really do it justice, it is such a hard book to encapsulate in a few paragraphs but I would urge everyone to pick this one up immediately. I give Draw Your Weapons five bombs ready to blow.
August 1, 2017
This one is going to haunt me for awhile. Thought-provoking, impactful, uncomfortable.
Some have criticized the format of the book - it's a bunch of very short essays all strung together - but I think this was a smart choice on Sentilles' part. There is some disturbing content here and it's much easier to digest in small bits throughout than it would be all at once.
Some have criticized the format of the book - it's a bunch of very short essays all strung together - but I think this was a smart choice on Sentilles' part. There is some disturbing content here and it's much easier to digest in small bits throughout than it would be all at once.
April 9, 2018
Riveting and poetic; the best book I’ve read in a long time. The ending gave me chills. Sarah Sentilles took ten years to write this book, and I’m glad she stuck with it. It’s a book as close to perfect as I’ve ever seen, despite its difficult, often uncomfortable subject matter.
Studying to be a priest, Sentilles viewed two photographs and decided to study photography and art instead. Because of her background, the book is woven together with a unique perspective. She discusses art, violence, war, and the part we all play in it. My takeaway is that when it comes to human suffering, violence, and indifference, if you’re not asking “Lord, is it I?” It’s probably you. And it’s probably you no matter what. So the real question becomes how do we come to terms with that fact, and what do we do about it.
Two favorite passages:
Images that show suffering seem to bring the pictured people near. You hold them in your hands. You see them on the television in your living room or on the computer screen in your office or bedroom or kitchen or on the screen of a smartphone you carry in your pocket. You are a good person. You feel. You grieve. You are sympathetic. You have done your part. “Our sympathy proclaims our innocence as well as our impotence,” Sontag wrote. It lets us off the hook: “So far as we feel sympathy, we feel we are not accomplices to what causes the suffering.” But sympathy is an impertinent response to images of suffering, and inappropriate response. Set sympathy aside, she wrote. Admit, instead, how our privileges are located on the same map as their suffering.
Let there be solace. Let there be only birds’ wings passing over the sun. Let there be breath. Let there be lift. Let there be places to be alone. Let there be hiding places. Let there be ancient trees. Let there be living creatures of every kind. Let there be good. Let there be only good. Let there be no reason to look away.
*****
Studying to be a priest, Sentilles viewed two photographs and decided to study photography and art instead. Because of her background, the book is woven together with a unique perspective. She discusses art, violence, war, and the part we all play in it. My takeaway is that when it comes to human suffering, violence, and indifference, if you’re not asking “Lord, is it I?” It’s probably you. And it’s probably you no matter what. So the real question becomes how do we come to terms with that fact, and what do we do about it.
Two favorite passages:
Images that show suffering seem to bring the pictured people near. You hold them in your hands. You see them on the television in your living room or on the computer screen in your office or bedroom or kitchen or on the screen of a smartphone you carry in your pocket. You are a good person. You feel. You grieve. You are sympathetic. You have done your part. “Our sympathy proclaims our innocence as well as our impotence,” Sontag wrote. It lets us off the hook: “So far as we feel sympathy, we feel we are not accomplices to what causes the suffering.” But sympathy is an impertinent response to images of suffering, and inappropriate response. Set sympathy aside, she wrote. Admit, instead, how our privileges are located on the same map as their suffering.
Let there be solace. Let there be only birds’ wings passing over the sun. Let there be breath. Let there be lift. Let there be places to be alone. Let there be hiding places. Let there be ancient trees. Let there be living creatures of every kind. Let there be good. Let there be only good. Let there be no reason to look away.
*****
November 2, 2017
This could very easily be one of the top 10 books I've read!
October 24, 2018
To use some dated (but perhaps ironic, in this case) phrasing, I was blown away by Draw Your Weapons. I experienced the book as an exquisite meditation/indictment/inspiration/call to action, and delighted in the intricacy of the seemingly disparate threads that ultimately comprise the “whole cloth” of being human. This is one of the few books I will undoubtedly read again - to savor, to absorb, to integrate more deeply into the meaning I continually make of our being in this world.
January 29, 2018
My book of 2017. Intelligent, unique and accessible to all - whether you’re interested in photography, art, philosophy, modern American politics, pacifism, warefare or just scintillating language.
December 9, 2017
I received an advanced review copy of this book but will be purchasing a copy, because I know I will return to it time and time again.
I am afraid to read another book for a long time, because I know it won't be able to move me the way this book did, nor will it be as well written.
I started this book yesterday looking for a story, and insight. What I got was an exposé of war, an intimate account of family, a portrait of complicity and citizenship, and friendship.
I was put off at first by the structure of the book, because I was looking for a story and didn't realize that I was going to be getting more than that. Once I got used to the way the book was flowing, I was unable to stop reading, to stop thinking and, especially, to stop feeling. Sentilles deftly weaves the story of a conscientious objector in with the story of a modern soldier, but she also examines the nature of war and suffering, and our place in it, with a lyricism that will make you feel as though you're attending the very best of lectures. Don't approach this book for a story, but for a meditation. Like the perfect TED Talk, this book left me equal parts informed and inspired, and feeling as though some deep part of myself had changed.
I am afraid to read another book for a long time, because I know it won't be able to move me the way this book did, nor will it be as well written.
I started this book yesterday looking for a story, and insight. What I got was an exposé of war, an intimate account of family, a portrait of complicity and citizenship, and friendship.
I was put off at first by the structure of the book, because I was looking for a story and didn't realize that I was going to be getting more than that. Once I got used to the way the book was flowing, I was unable to stop reading, to stop thinking and, especially, to stop feeling. Sentilles deftly weaves the story of a conscientious objector in with the story of a modern soldier, but she also examines the nature of war and suffering, and our place in it, with a lyricism that will make you feel as though you're attending the very best of lectures. Don't approach this book for a story, but for a meditation. Like the perfect TED Talk, this book left me equal parts informed and inspired, and feeling as though some deep part of myself had changed.
May 19, 2020
In this thoughtful collection of essays, Sentilles weaves together images of war with scenes from histories of American pacifism, drawing strong conclusions on the nature of mankind in a civilization rooted in brutality.
The essays are interwoven, and the work is best read beginning to end, several times.
Sentilles begins the project with a photograph of a conscientious objector, playing a violin he first began working on while he was imprisoned for his opposition to World War 2. She follows the man and his family through the final years of his life, but she also traces her own journey away from the study of theology to a niche where theology and art mix.
This is where she meets another inspiration for the book: a student, a veteran whose service in the Iraq War included a posting at Abu Ghraib Prison, sight of monstrous acts of torture. He is using art to work out issues tied to his service. Sentilles's musings on the photos of torture and her interaction with her student really bring out the depths of her pacifism and anchor this book.
As a Christian and as a pacifist, I found this book deeply comforting. It doesn't offer easy solutions, and it doesn't play sides. It simply uses art to engage the reader with elements of pacifism that can be found within each person.
The essays are interwoven, and the work is best read beginning to end, several times.
Sentilles begins the project with a photograph of a conscientious objector, playing a violin he first began working on while he was imprisoned for his opposition to World War 2. She follows the man and his family through the final years of his life, but she also traces her own journey away from the study of theology to a niche where theology and art mix.
This is where she meets another inspiration for the book: a student, a veteran whose service in the Iraq War included a posting at Abu Ghraib Prison, sight of monstrous acts of torture. He is using art to work out issues tied to his service. Sentilles's musings on the photos of torture and her interaction with her student really bring out the depths of her pacifism and anchor this book.
As a Christian and as a pacifist, I found this book deeply comforting. It doesn't offer easy solutions, and it doesn't play sides. It simply uses art to engage the reader with elements of pacifism that can be found within each person.
September 30, 2017
A meditation on war, suffering, objecting and art. This book primarily focuses on the story of two people, a World War II conscientious objector and an Iraq War veteran who was stationed at Abu Ghraib prison. Yet somehow, so much more is covered. Sentilles moves from one part to the next at a clip but somehow it all comes together to make an impressive whole. The language is wonderful and the purpose of the words is obvious. At times it so dark you feel like you can't continue reading but then something wonderful is folded in. I'm doing a terrible job of selling this book but it may be the first one I've read in awhile that changed me. There is so much to this, it also rate a re-read in a not distant future.
April 21, 2018
Lovely, deeply moving. As a war tax resister (who owed the IRS a lot of money this year because of the sale of my old home in Montana) this book came along at just the right time to help me formulate my letter to them and to buck up my courage to redirect the money to Poor Peoples Campaign. Highly recommended whether you're an activist or not. What a heart!!
March 26, 2021
This book blew my mind. It was unlike anything I have read before and I doubt I'll ever come across something similar. It is constructed of short paragraphs, often only a few sentences long, that skip across several themes including art, activism, war, religion and more. At first it was a bit disorienting, but after a while a golden thread starts to be drawn through all of these seemingly unrelated snippets and it makes for a revelatory reading experience.
Equal parts depressing and hopeful. Would highly recommend.
Equal parts depressing and hopeful. Would highly recommend.
June 28, 2018
This is a beautiful book. It is powerful, meditative, emotional - this is easily one of my favorite books.
Time and again I found myself stopping to really think about the concepts that Sarah Sentilles, the author, was illustrating and the connections she was able to draw between taking a principled approach to peace, art and the act of creating, war and power, and memory and history. I also really loved the unusual narrative. It was almost as if she was weaving together memoir, historical records, personal experiences and literature.
Time and again I found myself stopping to really think about the concepts that Sarah Sentilles, the author, was illustrating and the connections she was able to draw between taking a principled approach to peace, art and the act of creating, war and power, and memory and history. I also really loved the unusual narrative. It was almost as if she was weaving together memoir, historical records, personal experiences and literature.
January 30, 2019
This is an essential text. It should be required reading.
September 1, 2020
Burrows into the veins. Its connections alter views of the world, of art, of perception, of humanity, of life. I'm gobsmacked.
May 3, 2021
Intense and poetic. The way she weaves the stories started by a photograph of a man with violin, war, and photography is unique, insightful, and powerful commentary on what and how we see and the weapons used.
October 2, 2022
Best book I've read all year. Haunting. Beautiful. Poignant. Challenging.
February 22, 2019
Sarah Sentilles explores the power of images, particularly images of violence, and the way that we bear witness to them. Although it can be heavy and difficult to process at times, the patchwork structure of the book make the subject matter more manageable. I'm already looking forward to rereading this - I feel like multiple readings would deepen my understanding of the ideas explored, and the pages are filled with food for thought on war, peace, ethics, violence, pacifism, art, and a wide variety of other things.
June 15, 2017
While it took me a while to get through, I absolutely LOVED Draw Your Weapons by Sarah Sentilles. Taking a while to read something is usually due to slow pace or a writing style that conflicts with my taste, but that was not the case here. I think there were just a lot of heavy thoughts to meditate on and I often found myself inspired to write or research topics while reading.
Sentilles has a narrative style that incorporates her views, life experience, world history, and current events into the ultimate point that she's making. And it does so beautifully.
[I will likely append this will a full-length review when I have time to go back and look over the sections I highlighted]
This book was received complimentary from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed are 100% my own.
Sentilles has a narrative style that incorporates her views, life experience, world history, and current events into the ultimate point that she's making. And it does so beautifully.
[I will likely append this will a full-length review when I have time to go back and look over the sections I highlighted]
This book was received complimentary from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed are 100% my own.
October 4, 2017
This is a 21st Century essential book.
It's a collage that reminded me of Eduardo Galleano - and that's no small thing as Galleano may be the great collagist of literature but whereas he goes for the universal first, Sarah Sentilles goes from personal to universal, and that with great effect.
Draw Your Weapons follows a few lives, actually incidents in lives, and links them to mores, customs, and arts of our time. Incarceration, torture, war, photography, video games, poetry, the Bible, and the epics...this is a rich stew, a compelling read, and a compassionate investigation of who we are in this particular time and space.
This one wins a place in the permanent collection. Please read it.
It's a collage that reminded me of Eduardo Galleano - and that's no small thing as Galleano may be the great collagist of literature but whereas he goes for the universal first, Sarah Sentilles goes from personal to universal, and that with great effect.
Draw Your Weapons follows a few lives, actually incidents in lives, and links them to mores, customs, and arts of our time. Incarceration, torture, war, photography, video games, poetry, the Bible, and the epics...this is a rich stew, a compelling read, and a compassionate investigation of who we are in this particular time and space.
This one wins a place in the permanent collection. Please read it.
November 23, 2025
To see a photograph of suffering is to become a citizen of photography, Ariella argued; to be a view- to see through the gaze of another- is to a plaintiff who must let the image speak. And though you may be the viewer today or the photographer tomorrow, soon will come a time when you are the one in front of the lens.
Images that show suffering seem to bring the pictured people near. You hold them in your hands. You see them on the television in your living room or on the computer screen in your office or bedroom or kitchen or on the screen of a smartphone you carry in your pocket. You are a good person. You feel. You grieve. You are sympathetic. You have done your part. “Our sympathy proclaims our innocence as well as our impotence,” Sontag wrote. It lets us off the hook: “So far as we feel sympathy, we feel we are not accomplices to what causes the suffering.” But sympathy is an impertinent response to images of suffering, and inappropriate response. Set sympathy aside, she wrote. Admit, instead, how our privileges are located on the same map as their suffering.
This was a fantastic, everything book, meaning it covered everything about what it means to be human in the context of war, pacifism, good, evil, and art. I love this style, as disjointed as it can be, nonlinear and absolutely fascinating, reminiscent of Annie Dillard’s For the Time Being. In fact, I was shocked there was no reference to that book, since the style was similar, the grappling with good and evil in a religious sense similar, and there was a story in Dillard’s other work Pilgrim at Tinker Creek about how caddisfly larvae placed in tanks of different colored sand will make cocoons of art that showed up here too.
In the front blurb Of Dillard’s work, it says, “This personal narrative surveys the panorama of our world, past and present… How can an individual matter? How might one live?” From this book: How to live in the face of so much suffering? How to respond to violence that feels as it can’t be stopped? What difference can one person make in this beautiful, imperfect, and imperiled world?
But it was different enough, in a meandering, lengthier way, with personal connections to a soldier at Abu Ghraib and a violin maker and pacifist that embroiders the story with beauty. There is enough mystery about the topic I think there should be hundreds of books about it. I think Sentilles also uses a lot of quotes, as does Dillard, but they aren’t necessarily quotable, more academic or scholarly whereas Dillard finds the wisdom and beauty in quotes. I can’t believe this wasn’t nominated for more prizes; this is a book that should be there.
Faces in photographs endure, and they instruct, Alex Danchev wrote. They tell us about themselves, and they tell us about ourselves- who we are, and who we may become; what we are, and what we are capable of.
The first person to use the word photography, in 1833, was Hercules Florence, a French artist living in Sao Paolo, Brazil, a district of slave-maintained coffee plantations. The first image Florence made was of the jailhouse he could see from his front porch, a jailhouse that housed runaways and disobedient slaves. Photography rendered slavery visible, Nicholas Mirzoff wrote.
Seventy percent of the earth is covered in water- our bodies made of nearly the same percentage. Every living cell is essentially just a tiny bag of water, the scientist Hope Jahren wrote. Viewed from this perspective, life (the verb) is little more than the construction and reconstruction of trillions of bags of water.
The oldest known tree in the bristlecone grove has been named Methuselah, after Noah’s grandfather…Methuselah the tree is much older than its human namesake- 4,789 years old which means it has been living on the planet since around 2773 BCE… Methuselarity refers to the idea that it’s possible to develop rejuvenation technologies to keep human beings alive forever. I imagine plants and animals not wanted us to succeed. I imagine the whole planet rooting against us.
From the magazine The VVA Veteran, I learned this: three thousand years ago, an Egyptian combat veteran named Hori write about what it feels to enter battle: You determine to go forward…shuddering seizes you, the hair on your head stands on end, your soul lies in your hand.
In a quilt titled Hiroshima, Von Mertens stitched the stars as they would have appeared on August 6m 1945 between 8 am (when the air raid alarms were lifted) and 8:15 am (when the bomb was dropped). It was daylight, so no stars would have been visible, but here, the stars act as a witness to the new world dawning below. The air raids were lifted, the warning called off, because the radar operator saw only a handful of aircraft approaching- three airplanes, to be exact: the Enola Gay (which was carrying the bomb), a surveying craft, and a plane transporting a crewman whose job was to take photographs- and the radar operator couldn’t imagine that three planes could carry such destruction.
If fear of cherry blossoms can be passed to your children if you’ve been shocked while smelling them, can the fear ever be lifted? Can trauma be undone? Can you put the children of those who’ve been shocked into an orchard of cherry trees in bloom, in springtime, the sun warm, the still-cool air sweet, the ground pink with petals, and can you let them run free until they are no longer afraid, until their children are no longer afraid, and their children, and their children? Can it be passed back, that kind of healing? Can it be passed back, that kind of healing? Can it be offered to previous generations? Can the children say, ours is a different kind of world, and can that be enough?
Images that show suffering seem to bring the pictured people near. You hold them in your hands. You see them on the television in your living room or on the computer screen in your office or bedroom or kitchen or on the screen of a smartphone you carry in your pocket. You are a good person. You feel. You grieve. You are sympathetic. You have done your part. “Our sympathy proclaims our innocence as well as our impotence,” Sontag wrote. It lets us off the hook: “So far as we feel sympathy, we feel we are not accomplices to what causes the suffering.” But sympathy is an impertinent response to images of suffering, and inappropriate response. Set sympathy aside, she wrote. Admit, instead, how our privileges are located on the same map as their suffering.
This was a fantastic, everything book, meaning it covered everything about what it means to be human in the context of war, pacifism, good, evil, and art. I love this style, as disjointed as it can be, nonlinear and absolutely fascinating, reminiscent of Annie Dillard’s For the Time Being. In fact, I was shocked there was no reference to that book, since the style was similar, the grappling with good and evil in a religious sense similar, and there was a story in Dillard’s other work Pilgrim at Tinker Creek about how caddisfly larvae placed in tanks of different colored sand will make cocoons of art that showed up here too.
In the front blurb Of Dillard’s work, it says, “This personal narrative surveys the panorama of our world, past and present… How can an individual matter? How might one live?” From this book: How to live in the face of so much suffering? How to respond to violence that feels as it can’t be stopped? What difference can one person make in this beautiful, imperfect, and imperiled world?
But it was different enough, in a meandering, lengthier way, with personal connections to a soldier at Abu Ghraib and a violin maker and pacifist that embroiders the story with beauty. There is enough mystery about the topic I think there should be hundreds of books about it. I think Sentilles also uses a lot of quotes, as does Dillard, but they aren’t necessarily quotable, more academic or scholarly whereas Dillard finds the wisdom and beauty in quotes. I can’t believe this wasn’t nominated for more prizes; this is a book that should be there.
Faces in photographs endure, and they instruct, Alex Danchev wrote. They tell us about themselves, and they tell us about ourselves- who we are, and who we may become; what we are, and what we are capable of.
The first person to use the word photography, in 1833, was Hercules Florence, a French artist living in Sao Paolo, Brazil, a district of slave-maintained coffee plantations. The first image Florence made was of the jailhouse he could see from his front porch, a jailhouse that housed runaways and disobedient slaves. Photography rendered slavery visible, Nicholas Mirzoff wrote.
Seventy percent of the earth is covered in water- our bodies made of nearly the same percentage. Every living cell is essentially just a tiny bag of water, the scientist Hope Jahren wrote. Viewed from this perspective, life (the verb) is little more than the construction and reconstruction of trillions of bags of water.
The oldest known tree in the bristlecone grove has been named Methuselah, after Noah’s grandfather…Methuselah the tree is much older than its human namesake- 4,789 years old which means it has been living on the planet since around 2773 BCE… Methuselarity refers to the idea that it’s possible to develop rejuvenation technologies to keep human beings alive forever. I imagine plants and animals not wanted us to succeed. I imagine the whole planet rooting against us.
From the magazine The VVA Veteran, I learned this: three thousand years ago, an Egyptian combat veteran named Hori write about what it feels to enter battle: You determine to go forward…shuddering seizes you, the hair on your head stands on end, your soul lies in your hand.
In a quilt titled Hiroshima, Von Mertens stitched the stars as they would have appeared on August 6m 1945 between 8 am (when the air raid alarms were lifted) and 8:15 am (when the bomb was dropped). It was daylight, so no stars would have been visible, but here, the stars act as a witness to the new world dawning below. The air raids were lifted, the warning called off, because the radar operator saw only a handful of aircraft approaching- three airplanes, to be exact: the Enola Gay (which was carrying the bomb), a surveying craft, and a plane transporting a crewman whose job was to take photographs- and the radar operator couldn’t imagine that three planes could carry such destruction.
If fear of cherry blossoms can be passed to your children if you’ve been shocked while smelling them, can the fear ever be lifted? Can trauma be undone? Can you put the children of those who’ve been shocked into an orchard of cherry trees in bloom, in springtime, the sun warm, the still-cool air sweet, the ground pink with petals, and can you let them run free until they are no longer afraid, until their children are no longer afraid, and their children, and their children? Can it be passed back, that kind of healing? Can it be passed back, that kind of healing? Can it be offered to previous generations? Can the children say, ours is a different kind of world, and can that be enough?
Read
July 11, 2025I want every human ever to read this book. I found this book as a teaching assistant for an art and social issues class. It is beautifully written and confronts the darkest parts of our humanity.
May 5, 2020
A down-to-earth, thought-provoking, learned and deeply spiritual book. A guided meditation. A prayer for a non-violent world.
Sentilles introduces us to Howard, who was a conscientious objector in WWII and Miles who was stationed at Abu Ghraib. She tells us stories about these two people in bits of narrative interwoven with relevant and thought-provoking asides
In three brilliant pages, early in the book, she weaves a theme together about Howard's father's accidental drowning, Howard's subsequent refusal of baptism, the use of forced baptisms of the Spanish Inquisition and in the persecution of Anabaptists, swimming a witch, waterboarding, and Noah's Ark.
She offers insights from philosophers and authors and artists, all coming together thematically, in a very humane way, with her observations on violence, torture, and war, and how photography affects us when we view images of victims.
She refers to an idea of art critic John Berger's: how do we respond, after the initial shock of seeing such images - with despair or indignation? Are we moved to change anything?
Sentilles tells us, referring to an idea of Ulrich Baer's, that a photograph of a victim of violence communicates the message that we have arrived too late to prevent the harm.
How does the artist, bringing a thing in her imagination into reality, provide a better model of what all of us do in our lives, as we make our own reality from our less artistic and more cramped imaginations. She tells us, early in the book, that nobody believes war can be eradicated from human experience; not even pacifists believe it. Later she quotes Richard Rorty's insight that we shouldn't worry whether what we believe is true, but should aspire to be "imaginative enough to think of good alternatives".
A lot of thought and research went into this book, and the reward for each minute spent reading is equally proportioned.
It is a thought-provoking book. Good in so many ways. The kind of book you might want to read again, as soon as you are done.
Sentilles introduces us to Howard, who was a conscientious objector in WWII and Miles who was stationed at Abu Ghraib. She tells us stories about these two people in bits of narrative interwoven with relevant and thought-provoking asides
In three brilliant pages, early in the book, she weaves a theme together about Howard's father's accidental drowning, Howard's subsequent refusal of baptism, the use of forced baptisms of the Spanish Inquisition and in the persecution of Anabaptists, swimming a witch, waterboarding, and Noah's Ark.
She offers insights from philosophers and authors and artists, all coming together thematically, in a very humane way, with her observations on violence, torture, and war, and how photography affects us when we view images of victims.
She refers to an idea of art critic John Berger's: how do we respond, after the initial shock of seeing such images - with despair or indignation? Are we moved to change anything?
Sentilles tells us, referring to an idea of Ulrich Baer's, that a photograph of a victim of violence communicates the message that we have arrived too late to prevent the harm.
How does the artist, bringing a thing in her imagination into reality, provide a better model of what all of us do in our lives, as we make our own reality from our less artistic and more cramped imaginations. She tells us, early in the book, that nobody believes war can be eradicated from human experience; not even pacifists believe it. Later she quotes Richard Rorty's insight that we shouldn't worry whether what we believe is true, but should aspire to be "imaginative enough to think of good alternatives".
A lot of thought and research went into this book, and the reward for each minute spent reading is equally proportioned.
It is a thought-provoking book. Good in so many ways. The kind of book you might want to read again, as soon as you are done.
November 12, 2017
My mom reads more than anyone I know. She gave this book a strong five stars and said it moved into her top ten ever favorites. That's a bold statement. I started reading it and like so many books that are hard, I said to her, "I don't know, Mom. It's going to be sad." She said, "It is a tough book, but you should know about it so keep going."
In the nonfiction Draw Your Weapons, Sentilles writes about two photographs. The first photograph is of an older man holding a violin. We learn throughout the book about his experiences as a conscientious objector and his making art in response to war. The second photograph is one taken of prisoners being tortured in the Abu Ghraib prison, a prison in Iraq. One of the guards at Abu Ghraib, a guard after the photos were taken, also makes art in response to war.
Draw Your Weapons is told in small snippets. It almost feels like you're in a graduate class Sentilles is teaching, one maybe called "Art in War" or "Photographs and Our Responses to Them." She points out that when looking at pictures of war, empathetic or sympathetic responses aren't enough, it's our responsibility to remake the world after seeing the suffering and pain.
I, too, would give this book five stars. It wasn't written like a normal book and may not be for everyone, but it will stick with me for a long time.
"I don't understand quantum entanglement , but I can't stop thinking about it - how an interaction leaves everything changed. How, when two things come together and then go apart, they are still connected. Know the spin of one, and predict the spin of the other. Change the spin of one, and you change the spin of the other. Einstein called it spooky action at a distance."
From the Acknowledgements and written to editor Andy Ward, "Let's hope language bombs can someday disarm actual bombs."
In the nonfiction Draw Your Weapons, Sentilles writes about two photographs. The first photograph is of an older man holding a violin. We learn throughout the book about his experiences as a conscientious objector and his making art in response to war. The second photograph is one taken of prisoners being tortured in the Abu Ghraib prison, a prison in Iraq. One of the guards at Abu Ghraib, a guard after the photos were taken, also makes art in response to war.
Draw Your Weapons is told in small snippets. It almost feels like you're in a graduate class Sentilles is teaching, one maybe called "Art in War" or "Photographs and Our Responses to Them." She points out that when looking at pictures of war, empathetic or sympathetic responses aren't enough, it's our responsibility to remake the world after seeing the suffering and pain.
I, too, would give this book five stars. It wasn't written like a normal book and may not be for everyone, but it will stick with me for a long time.
"I don't understand quantum entanglement , but I can't stop thinking about it - how an interaction leaves everything changed. How, when two things come together and then go apart, they are still connected. Know the spin of one, and predict the spin of the other. Change the spin of one, and you change the spin of the other. Einstein called it spooky action at a distance."
From the Acknowledgements and written to editor Andy Ward, "Let's hope language bombs can someday disarm actual bombs."
January 21, 2022
I devoured Draw Your Weapons by Sarah Sentilles.
Reading this book is like flipping through a photo album or walking through an art exhibit. Every chapter is a patchwork of narrative, vignettes, quotes, topics threaded together by sometimes the slenderest of connections. Her topics range from waterboarding, to Abu Ghraib, to the advent of photography, to conscientious objection, to the mass incarceration of Americans from 1941-46 only because of their Japanese heritage, to drone strikes, to military service, even to Call of Duty. It's no wonder she states in her Acknowledgments that this book took her 10 years to write—the breadth of the topics she skips across one to the next is, well, breathtaking.
Sentilles' style, however, may not be for every reader. In a chapter titled "In Your Head", she jumps from a paragraph about a "forgetting pill" experiment for traumatized mice to a vignette about visiting her friend Howard as he's beginning to suffer from dementia. Sentilles' transitions from one topic to the next are like sudden cuts in a film. She leaves the reader to connect the dots themselves.
That might make this book more of a writer's book than a reader's book but this is a mote of a criticism and it in no way diminishes the overall stellar quality of the work. I will certainly be referencing much of what she's written concerning Abu Ghraib and drone strikes for my own projects.
That said, if biting last lines and discussions on war and peace that'll leave your mind bubbling for days on end is your thing, then Draw Your Weapons is necessary reading for you.
Reading this book is like flipping through a photo album or walking through an art exhibit. Every chapter is a patchwork of narrative, vignettes, quotes, topics threaded together by sometimes the slenderest of connections. Her topics range from waterboarding, to Abu Ghraib, to the advent of photography, to conscientious objection, to the mass incarceration of Americans from 1941-46 only because of their Japanese heritage, to drone strikes, to military service, even to Call of Duty. It's no wonder she states in her Acknowledgments that this book took her 10 years to write—the breadth of the topics she skips across one to the next is, well, breathtaking.
Sentilles' style, however, may not be for every reader. In a chapter titled "In Your Head", she jumps from a paragraph about a "forgetting pill" experiment for traumatized mice to a vignette about visiting her friend Howard as he's beginning to suffer from dementia. Sentilles' transitions from one topic to the next are like sudden cuts in a film. She leaves the reader to connect the dots themselves.
That might make this book more of a writer's book than a reader's book but this is a mote of a criticism and it in no way diminishes the overall stellar quality of the work. I will certainly be referencing much of what she's written concerning Abu Ghraib and drone strikes for my own projects.
That said, if biting last lines and discussions on war and peace that'll leave your mind bubbling for days on end is your thing, then Draw Your Weapons is necessary reading for you.
August 17, 2017
A book about art used during war and peace. Sarah the author begins with two photographs, one is the famous photo of a man in Abu Ghraib prison standing on a box with wire electrodes in his hands, a head covered by a black hood and a makeshift top covering him. The second is from a newspaper, an elderly man holding a violin he made 60 years ago in a prison for conscience objectors. In her class she's teaching a young man who was in Abu Ghraib expresses weird beliefs and art work. Visiting the elderly man with the violin she begins to piece together a life scarred by bullying and imprisonment because he refused to fight. This book uses photography, drawings, paintings and writings to pull out the meaning of them and researching what was behind the scenes. She also points out how seeing art in pictures can spread and change the experience for all. A great quote finds mentions that photography ended slavery. By capturing images that spread far and wide the brutality of slavery was seen by many. She also mentions how the photograph of the Vietcong man shot on the street by a South Vietnamese commander had a huge effect on support for the war in the US. This is an art book which uses images to explain how it affected changes in the future. The soldier who took the photographs at Abu Ghraib stated she did it to record what was happening but she was convicted of committing a crime and spent 5 months in prison. Peace is punished while violence is rewarded.
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