This book of essays by medical anthropologists and other health social scientists examines the full measure of the disastrous global health effects of war in the contemporary world. It provides a political economic framework for assessing the war machine.

In the contemporary world, war rivals infectious disease as a global cause of morbidity and mortality. Since the end of World War II, there have been at least 160 wars around the world with as many as 25 million (and probably many more) people killed, most of them civilians. Directly or indirectly, war touches the lives of most people on the planet, often with lasting and costly impact. Framed by the holistic and ethnographically grounded theoretical perspective of critical medical anthropology, and more broadly by the political economy of health, this book of essays by leading medical anthropologists and other health social scientists carefully examines the global effects of war, the war industry, and the international weapons trade on human health and well-being. Further, this book goes beyond offering a lively and readable account of a pressing health concern by critically analyzing the political and economic forces driving the war machine to inflict ever-increasing levels of social suffering and loss of life.

Chapter 1 Introduction: The Myriad Impacts of the War Machine on Global Health
Chapter 2
Chapter I. The War Machine and Global Morbidity and Mortality
Chapter 3
Chapter 1. The Echoes of War: Effects of Early Malnutrition on Adult Health
Chapter 4
Chapter 2. War and the Public Health Disaster in Iraq
Chapter 5
Chapter 3. Children and Revolution: The Mental Health and Psychosocial Wellbeing of Child Soldiers in Nepal
Chapter 6
Chapter II: The Environment of War and its Impact on the Human Environment
Chapter 7
Chapter 4. The Causes and Human Costs of Targeting Iraq
Chapter 8
Chapter 5. The Impact Of The War Machine On Global Warming And Health: A Political Ecological Perspective
Chapter 9
Chapter 6. Dying of Sorrow: Expulsion, Empire, and the People of Diego Garcia
Chapter 10
Chapter III: The War Machine and the Machinery of Human Social Life
Chapter 11
Chapter 7. Hasbara, Health Care and the Israeli Occupied Palestinian Territories
Chapter 12
Chapter 8. Waging War on the Wageless: Extrajudicial Killings, Private Armies, and the Poor of Honduras
Chapter 13
Chapter 9. Olive Drab and White Coats: United States Military Medical Teams Interoperating with Guatemala
Chapter 14 Conclusion: The Political-Economy and Critical Geography of the War Machine