We Chose to Speak of War and Strife: The World of the Foreign Correspondent Hardcover – January 3, 2017

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. John Simpson is a wonderful writer and has a wealth of experience on which to draw. He is a superb foreign correspondent for the BBC.I have previously read Simpson’s “Dispatches from the Barricades”. This book covers the events of 1989 to 1990 where Simpson had a front row seat to great events. He was on location for Tiananmen Square and the crushing of the nascent uprising. He witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall, the velvet revolution in Prague, the fall of Ceausescu in Romania, the end of apartheid in South Africa and the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union.In “We Chose to Speak of War and Strife”, Simpson steps back form the barricades and muses on the history and characteristics of a foreign correspondent. He begins with a brief history of such events as the Crimean War and World War I before neatly seguing into events drawn from his own direct experience. The book is often anecdotal as he talks of the dangers of the profession and some of the risks that journalists willingly take. Of course, some die in the process. The book is always a riveting read.His brief conclusion is bitter. Less and less resources are being applied to the reporting of foreign affairs. The industry is being whittled away and the result is a less informed public. Knowledge seldom drifts beyond domestic affairs. This is a great shame. John Simpson has devoted is life to this not being the case. A highly recommended read.

Boring in the extreme. I thought it was about some of the experiences various people have had. Only useful (possibly) for someone interested in the history of such journalism. Gave up reading it.