Stripping Bare the Body

Stripping Bare the Body shows at close hand how terrorism works and how war looks and smells and feels. Drawing on rich narratives of politics and violence and war from around the world, Stripping Bare the Body is a moral history of American power during the last quarter-century, as told by one of the world’s leading writers.

A newly installed Haitian president told Mark Danner in riot-torn Port-au-Prince, “Violence strips bare a society’s body, the better to place the stethoscope and track the life beneath the skin.” This stark truth came to haunt Danner, especially after the president was overthrown in a bloody coup d’état.

Stripping Bare the Body moves from mass murder on election day in Port-au-Prince, to massacre by mortar bomb on the streets of Sarajevo, to suicide bombings in the suburbs of Baghdad, to torture in the secret “black site” prisons of Thailand and Afghanistan, to political deal-making, personal rivalries and bureaucratic in-fighting in Washington and New York and Langley. Here is the vivid, unforgettable history of what Mark Danner calls a “grim age, still infused with the remnant perfume of imperial dreams.”

‘It is rare to find in one person such attention to the impact of history, capacity for clear-eyed analysis founded in close study of documents, clarity and vividness in the writing, and a deep commitment to the on-the-ground reporting in some of the most dangerous places on earth.’ —Age

‘There’s probably no one alive who understands political conflict and upheaval better than Mark Danner, and there is almost certainly no one who writes more eloquently about it. Stripping Bare the Body is an unmitigated masterpiece of reporting and analysis.’ —Dave Eggers

‘No other writer combines brilliant and courageous reporting with brilliant and courageous political and moral thinking as Danner does. He is also, first and last, a breathtakingly good writer.’ —Michael Pollan

‘Compelling reading … Danner is an excellent writer who revels himself to be a deep thinker about some of the most tragic places on earth.’ —Canberra Times

‘With this vivid and deeply disturbing book, Mark Danner affirms his standing as our pre-eminent guide to the world’s broken places.’ —Andrew J Bacevich

Mark Danner has reported and written on foreign affairs, politics and war for twenty-five years. He was for many years a staff writer at the New Yorker and contributes frequently to the New York Review of Books, the New York Times Magazine, and other publications. His books include The Secret Way to War, Torture and Truth, The Road to Illegitimacy and The Massacre at El Mozote, which was chosen by the New York Times as a Notable Book of the Year. Danner’s work has been honoured with a US National Magazine award, three Overseas Press Awards and an Emmy.