I've read a few books about what it was like to be in Yugoslavia during the war. Many of the books out there cover the 20,000 foot view of history, culture, government, and military strategy, the leaders, and the Western response. This book recounts the author's experiences traveling through Yugoslavia. Loyd was ostensibly in Yugoslavia as a journalist, but he freely admits he just wanted to go to a war. Instead of staying in the hotel sipping drinks with other Westerners, Loyd took to the countryside to experience the war. Loyd apparently was more of a tourist who went native, opting to dump his armor and put away his camera to get to know the locals, learn the language, and frequently traveled the countryside solo, experiencing whatever fate brought his way. If you like eyewitness accounts, you will enjoy this book.
This is an extraordinary, personal look at modern war by a young correspondent who saw its horrors firsthand, My War Gone By, I Miss It So is already being compared to the classics of war literature.
Born into a distinguished family steeped in military tradition, from his youth Anthony Loyd longed to experience the fury of war from the front lines. Driven by suicidal despair and drug dependence, the former soldier left his native England at the age of twenty-six to cover the bloodiest conflict that Europe had seen since the Second World War -- the war in Bosnia.
Nothing can prepare you for the account of war that Loyd gives. His harrowing stories from the battlefields show humanity at its worst and best, witnessed through the grim tragedies played out daily in the city, streets, and mountain villages of Bosnia and Chechnya.
Profoundly shocking, violent, poetic, and ultimately redemptive, My War Gone By, I Miss It So is an uncompromising look at the terrifying brutality of war. It is a breathtaking, soul-shattering book, an intense and moving piece of reportage that you won't put down and will never be able to forget.
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