Shadows of War: Violence, Power, and International Profiteering in the Twenty-First Century

by Carolyn Nordstrom

In this provocative and compelling examination of the deep politics of war, Carolyn Nordstrom takes us from the immediacy of war-zone survival, through the offices of power brokers, to vast extra-legal networks that fuel war and international profiteering. She captures the human face of the front lines, revealing both the visible and the hidden realities of war in the twenty-first century. Shadows of War is grounded in ethnographic research carried out at the epicenters of political violence on several continents. Its pages are populated not only with the perpetrators and victims of war but also with the scoundrels, silent heroes, and average families who live their lives in the midst of explosive violence. War reconfigures our most basic notions of humanity, Nordstrom demonstrates. This book, of crucial importance at the present moment, shows that war is enmeshed in struggles over the very foundations of the sovereign state, the crafting of economic empires both legal and illegal, and innovative searches for peace.

Nordstrom describes the multi-trillion-dollar international financial networks that support warfare. She traces the entangled routes by which illegal drugs, precious gems, weapons, basic food supplies, and pharmaceuticals are moved by an international cast of businesspeople, profiteers, and black-market operators. Shadows of War demonstrates how the experiences of both the architects of war and of ordinary people are deleted from media accounts and replaced with stories about soldiers, weapons, and territory. For the first time, this book retrieves from the shadows the faces of those whose stories seldom reach the light of international recognition.

Genres: Nonfiction, Anthropology, Politics, War, History, Academic, Military Fiction

306 pages, Paperback

First published April 17, 2004

Reviews

[Anu · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the list of badass women on the planet, Carolyn Nordstrom is way up top. Her writings on shadow economies and gendered violence not only shed a refreshingly warm light on a bleak subject, they inspire you to, you know, want to be Carolyn Nordstrom. Chapters of this book are required readings for me, for what has to be the most haunting (albeit also most interesting) class I will ever have to take, but Nordstrom just makes it a little lighter, a little brighter. I mean, I did read the full book, not just the required chapters. Says something, dunnit?

[György · Rating 4 out of 5]

If to briefly describe, I'd say: "the fierce species"
Let me to approach it on unconventional way without getting into description about the structure, the style and other performances of the book. There is nothing in this book that I'd sort as an original discovery, unfortunately. It is just the dark side of the nature, we call- human, and if we'd approve to continue our life based on the evolutionary law of natural selection, then this topic would be for no interest for the society. But perhaps, shortly after, the wanderer we know as Earth would be much peaceful without the poached hypersexual, fierce humans as we'd hardly survive the aftermath of the thermonuclear war. That far are we from the expected degree of civilization compared to the level of technological development. We are not out of danger, and I'd like to salute to the author, and in same time to express appreciation that some of us are on that stage of consciousness that can and dare to recognize and publish these "dangerous correlations".

[Drew · Rating 5 out of 5]

I rapidly moved through Carolyn Nordstrom’s Shadows of War: Violence, Power, and International Profiteering in the Twenty-First Century. I picked this book up at the 2005 AAA meeting, and just turned to it about a week and a half ago. [Aside: I have found that I really need to re-energize my anthropology side of late. My career in political campaigns has had a profound draining effect on my inner being. More on that in a future posting!]

Nordstrom’s book is a fabulous tour through the shadows, the places where legal and illegal, extra-state and state, and survival and profit intersect. She studies these shadow phenomena primarily along the front lines of wars in Angola, Sri Lanka, Mozambique, and elsewhere. However, her trenchant analysis shows that how the local is intimately intertwined with the global. It’s not a simply globalization is bad story, nor it is a simplistic core/periphery argument that she lays out. She shows how people survive, both culturally, politically, and economically in today’s world. She shines a bright light on these shadow or informal economies that are so often ignored by academics, politicians, and diplomats, or, perhaps worse than ignoring them, these people place informal economies within less-than-civlized groupings of people or speak of them as solely illegal.

Her deep ethnography of those living through war and not-war as well as the humanitarian and development corps that always pop up on the scene, illustrates the deep, varied, and strong ties that link human beings in one area to people in other areas. Surprisingly, she shows us that while statesman and media focus on illegal drug or arms networks, these informal economies also provide food, medicines, clothing, and the various necessities and pleasures of life. Additionally, in some war-torn or recently postwar societies, these informal economies can make up 20, 30, even 90% of the total economic activity of the nation. Economists, development organizations, the United Nations, and national leaders do not look at these economies, perhaps because doing so would lend credence to the fact that states aren’t as powerful as they portray themselves to be.

This is a fabulous book that explores territory that you won’t normally find in a international relations text or an economics lecture. But, you should read it to start to explore notions of power, the state, legal and illegal, formal and non-formal. In order to work in the international realm, be it development, politics, conflict resolution, or humanitarian aid, Nordstrom’s book should be in your satchel as you work to help people.

[Jennifer J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A startlingly good book from an anthropologist that I have never really heard of. She ponders and traces the connection between global economies and war, peace, peace that isn't, war that isn't. The focus is on Sierra Leone, and Africa is often the brunt of theorizing about humanity's brutality, but her data points to places where the relations of exploitation that she describes are quite pronounced and visible from an American point of view. This book is written for the privileged, and I am glad that I came across it.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

An eye-opening and disturbing glimpse at the realities of war and conflict. "But for most people in the world, these brushes with life, death, and profiteering are laregly invisible. They are invisible because militarily, much of war violates human sensibilities; because logistically, the front lines are difficult to document with neutrality; because economically, fortunes are made and lost in less than ethical ways; because politically, power covers its tracks."

[Anica Cronje · Rating 5 out of 5]

Remarkable depiction of the reality of war, the shadows & illegal trade that's going on all over the world. A woman entering dangerous areas and seeing first hand the atrocities is always worth listening to!

[Lauren Willis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great educational read; it was very thought provoking and included visual and emotional stories of Nordstrom's time in Angola, Mozambique and other places during her time of ethnographical research.

[Thomas Ray]

HM554 N67 2004 College Library Rm. 1191 and Memorial Library

Nordstrom's web pages:
https://anthropology.nd.edu/people/fa...
https://nd.academia.edu/CarolynNordstrom

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was just a pleasure read, it’s probably a 3.5. It looks at the many facets of war and how it impacts people.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

wonderful, well-written book that will make you think.

[Nikki Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fantastic account of the ways in which unethical (or just desperate) people can profit during war.

[L · Rating 4 out of 5]

very well put together, balances the social and the personal.

[Whitney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. Must read.

[Rainey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thought provoking and compelling, this book delivers masked truths about war, violence, peace, global connections and economy.

[Lauren Lastrapes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't read this if you don't want to be very sad.

[Roxani · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good that it makes me want to be an ethnographer (if that's not what I am already? ish?)