The War is in the Mountains

Judith Matloff investigates remote mountain communities across the globe to understand why so many conflicts occur at such great heights

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Mountainous regions are home to only ten percent of the world s population yet host a strikingly disproportionate share of the world s conflicts. Mountains provide a natural refuge for those who want to elude authority, and their remoteness has allowed archaic practices to persist well into our globalized era.

As Judith Matloff shows, the result is a combustible mix those in the lowlands cannot afford to ignore. Travelling to conflict zones across the world, she introduces us to Albanian teenagers involved in ancient blood feuds; Mexican peasants hunting down violent poppy growers; and Jihadists who have resisted the Russian military for decades. At every stop, Matloff reminds us that the drugs, terrorism, and instability cascading down the mountainside affect us all.

A work of political travel writing in the vein of Ryszard Kapuscinski and Robert Kaplan, The War is in the Mountains is an indelible portrait of the conflicts that have unexpectedly shaped our world.