Stealth Conflicts

Virgil Hawkins is Assistant Professor at the Global Collaboration Center (GLOCOL), Osaka University, Japan.

• Contents: Introduction; The state of world conflict; Conflict consciousness and stealth conflicts; Policymakers; The media; The public; Academia; Conclusions: what makes stealth conflicts?; Bibliography; Index.

'Take off your rose-coloured glasses before you start reading. This book is a powerful and disturbing indictment of our inability to see, think or act in ways that might seriously curtail the true inhumanity of war.' Ian Smillie, Partnership Africa, Canada 'This disturbing book shows that our view of modern war is wrong. We may think that in a media-dominated age, the face of battle and its horrors can be seen in every living room. Far from it. The author shows that most major wars are hidden from us and that we have no idea of how deadly they are because no one knows the true death toll. He shows that the number of non-violent deaths in war - from hunger, disease and the collapse of infrastructure - almost invariably exceeds the number of violent deaths. If every leader and every media magnate could be forced to read this seminal book we might make some progress towards a conflict-free world.' Phillip Knightley, author of The First Casualty, a history of war reporting and propaganda 'Stealth Conflicts is a provocative and well-informed examination of why the world actively ignores many of the deadliest conflicts of the last half-century. The book is less of an indictment and more of a necessary critical investigation into why policy-makers, as well as the media, the general public, NGOs, and academia marginalize most of the world's worst wars. A must-read for anyone concerned with conflict and peace-making in the 21st century.' Kevin C. Dunn, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, USA