Used book – Reflections on War, Evil and the End of History, Bernard-Henri Lévy

In this new book, BHL chose to combine autobiography with reportage. And he inscribes the whole within what one might call his "metaphysics of Evil." First, the reportage: during 2001, BHL went to observe five "forgotten wars" up close: in Burundi, Angola, Sudan, Sri Lanka, and Colombia. In each of these countries, he immersed himself in the heart of conflicts – some of which have lasted for over thirty years and no longer even have political stakes – whose meaning, if it ever existed, has been completely lost even for the actors themselves. He witnessed, daily, these "wars of ghosts," whose outcome is indifferent to the rest of the world, and which nevertheless continue to kill by the thousands, by hundreds of thousands. Each of these wars is the subject of a report published in Le Monde at the end of May. These "reports" – which will be widely discussed during their pre-publication – constitute the second part of this work. As for the first part, of equal importance (150 pages), it deals more specifically with the "autobiographical" aspect of this work. For BHL admits: ever since his adventures in Bangladesh thirty years ago, he has maintained a strange, ambiguous relationship with war. It horrifies him, certainly. But he likes to observe it, share the lives of its actors, lose himself in it, exile himself in it... Why, then, this "taste"? In the name of what nostalgia? In the name of what guilt? In the name of what troubled fascination for evil and its spectacle? These questions lead to developments that BHL had already sketched out – in Le Diable en tête, in Le Lys et la cendre – and which, here, complete (with Comédie) a kind of fragmented autobiography. Confession is mixed with theory. The "novel of a life" alternates with an analysis of the era. It's beautiful. Modest. Lucid.