How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales From the Pentagon

Once, war was a temporary state of affairs. Today, America’s wars are everywhere and forever: our enemies change constantly and rarely wear uniforms, and virtually anything can become a weapon. As war expands, so does the role of the US military. Military personnel now analyze computer code, train Afghan judges, build Ebola isolation wards, eavesdrop on electronic communications, develop soap operas, and patrol for pirates. You name it, the military does it.

Rosa Brooks traces this seismic shift in how America wages war from an unconventional perspective - that of a former top Pentagon official who is the daughter of two antiwar protesters and married to an Army Green Beret. By turns a memoir, a work of journalism, and a scholarly exploration of history, anthropology, and law, How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything is above all a rallying cry. For as Brooks shows, when the boundaries around war disappear, we undermine both America's founding values and the international rules and organizations that keep our world from sliding toward chaos.