Frontlines: Conflict in the 21st Century

Award-winning British photographer Smith presents eight sets of photos from six conflicts, including three portfolios from the Iraq war (he was embedded with the Marines in 2005 and with the 101st Airborne Division in 2006). His book also includes two sections on Afghanistan and one each on Israel, Lebanon, and the Congo. Forgoing grand panoramic views of battles, Smith tends to favor low-lying perspectives of small groups of soldiers and civilians, the latter sometimes captive and being interrogated, even tortured or dead. He captures the senselessness of the carnage, such as a photo of a man American Marines shot dead in Iraq in 2007. The caption dryly informs us, “It seems that he was a taxi driver who had merely got lost in the area because of numerous road closures.” More than a few of these photos have a grisly, if compellingly immediate, quality, of which the most harrowing and indelible image is of the Congo, of chickens scavenging a corpse. Unfortunately, Smith provides only a sketchy and occasionally tendentious description of each conflict. Also frustrating are inadequate captions that leave the geography hazy. These flaws aside, Smith is a fine documenter of the violent and, often, the prosaic quality of early 21st-century regional conflict. (All conflicts but Lebanon are still being fought and the one in the Congo has a particularly huge toll of killing, maiming, and rape.) (Jan.)