Everyday War: The Conflict Over Donbas, Ukraine by Greta Lynn Uehling

Everyday War provides an accessible lens through which to understand what non-combatant civilians go through in a country at war. What goes through the mind of a mother who must send her child to school across a mined field? In Ukraine, such questions have been part of the daily calculus of life. Greta Uehling engages with the lives of ordinary people living in and around the armed conflict over Donbas that began in 2014 and shows how conventional understandings of war are incomplete.

In Ukraine, landscapes filled with death and destruction prompted attentiveness to human vulnerabilities and the cultivation of everyday, interpersonal peace. Uehling explores a constellation of social practices where ethics of care were in operation. People were also drawn into the conflict in an everyday form of war that included provisioning fighters with military equipment they purchased themselves, smuggling insulin, and cutting ties to former friends. Each chapter considers a different site where care can produce interpersonal peace or its antipode, everyday war.

Bridging the fields of political geography, international relations, peace and conflict studies, and anthropology, Everyday War considers a different site where peace can be cultivated at an everyday level.

Goodreads Synopsis

Overall Rating: 5/5

Quick Take

Everyday War: The Conflict Over Donbas, Ukraine by Greta Lynn Uehling is an essential read for understanding what civilian life has been like in a land where warfare and military activity have altered daily life. Uehling’s research is phenomenal, and she covers a variety of social aspects that have been changed by ongoing destruction. While this is not light reading, the topic is well explored and is ideal for anyone looking to learn more about the conflict in Ukraine and its impact on civilians.

Tell Me More

Military activity has been ongoing in Ukraine, and while the conflict has been widely publicized, the daily life of civilians has not received as much press as it should. Greta Lynn Uehling’s book, Everyday War: The Conflict Over Donbas, Ukraine, fills that gap. Impeccably researched, Uehling’s writing focuses on what everyday life has been like for the civilians of Donbas, Ukraine, and goes as far to explore how such relationships as friendships and marriage have been impacted.

But the insight does not stop there. One harrowing section of the book focuses on a group of civilians called The Black Tulips who have volunteered to retrieve the dead. This section does not sugarcoat the atrocities that this group faces, and it tears the reader apart.

While the book is highly educational and reads like college material, it is engaging and ideal for anyone looking to learn more about the conflicts in Ukraine. Uehling writes with a caring hand, and while much of the book is difficult to digest, she writes in such a way that it is easy for the reader to understand and absorb.

Everyday War: The Conflict Over Donbas, Ukraine by Greta Lynn Uehling is a current read about a historical event that is perfect for readers of history and nonfiction. It is searing, blunt, and compassionate in the best of ways. This is not a book to miss.