Christopher Lynn Hedges was born in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, the son of a Presbyterian minister, the Rev. Thomas Hedges. He grew up in upstate New York, graduated from the Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor, Connecticut in 1975 and attended Colgate University where he received a B.A. in English Literature. He later obtained a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School, where he studied under James Luther Adams. He was awarded an honorary doctorate in May 2009 from the Unitarian Universalist seminary, Starr King School for the Ministry, in Berkeley, California.

In 1983, Hedges began his career reporting on the conflict in El Salvador. Following six years in Latin America, he took time off to study Arabic and then went to Jerusalem and later Cairo. He spent seven years in the Middle East, most of them as the Middle East Bureau Chief for The New York Times. During the first Gulf War he was taken prisoner by the Iraqi Republican Guard while covering the Shiite uprising in the southern Iraqi city of Basra. He was released after a week to the International Committee of the Red Cross. He left the Middle East in 1995 for Sarajevo to cover the war in Bosnia followed by the war in Kosovo. Later, he joined the investigative team of The New York Times, based in Paris, and covered terrorism.

He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University during the academic year of 1998-1999 where he studied classics. In addition to English, he speaks Arabic, French and Spanish and knows Latin and ancient Greek. He has written for numerous publications including The Nation, Foreign Affairs, Harper's Magazine, The New York Review of Books, Granta, Mother Jones, New Humanist and Robert Scheer's web magazine Truthdig where he publishes a column every Monday.

Hedges, an outspoken critic of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, was also an early and vocal critic of the Iraq War. He questioned the rationale for war by the Bush administration and was critical of the early press coverage, calling it "shameful cheerleading". In May 2003, Hedges delivered a commencement address at Rockford College in Rockford, Illinois, saying:

"We are embarking on an occupation that, if history is any guide, will be as damaging to our souls as it will be to our prestige and power and security."

Several hundred members of the audience booed and jeered his talk, although some applauded. Hedges' microphone was cut twice and two young men rushed the stage to try to prevent him from speaking. Hedges had to cut short his address and was escorted off campus by security officials before the ceremony was over. An editorial in The Wall Street Journal denounced Hedges for his anti-war stance on May 24. His employer, The New York Times, criticized his statements and issued him a written reprimand for "public remarks that could undermine public trust in the paper's impartiality." Hedges, refusing to accept these restrictions, left The New York Times to become a senior fellow at The Nation Institute, write books and teach.

Hedges has stated that he is not a pacifist and supports humanitarian interventions, such as those in Bosnia and Kosovo, designed to stop campaigns of genocide. He nevertheless describes war as "the most potent narcotic invented by humankind."

Hedges states that his outlook is influenced by moral writers and ethicists such as George Orwell, Samuel Johnson, Karl Popper, Hannah Arendt, Elias Canetti, Dwight Macdonald, C. Wright Mills, Theodor Adorno and theologians such as William Stringfellow, Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, Abraham Heschel, and Reinhold Niebuhr.

In December 29, 2008 column for Truthdig, Hedges identified himself as a "socialist" in contrast to what he sees as "ruthless totalitarian capitalism."

War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (2002)

Hedges' bestselling War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (ISBN 1586480499) draws on his experiences in various conflicts to describe the patterns and behavior of nations and individuals in wartime. The book was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.

"War and conflict have marked most of my adult life. I began covering insurgencies in El Salvador, where I spent five years, then went on to Guatemala and Nicaragua and Colombia, through the first intifada in the West Bank and Gaza, the civil war in the Sudan and Yemen, the uprisings in Algeria and the Punjab, the fall of the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, the Gulf War, the Kurdish rebellion in southeast Turkey and northern Iraq, the war in Bosnia, and finally Kosovo. I have been in ambushes on desolate stretches of Central American roads, shot at in the marshes of southern Iraq, imprisoned in the Sudan, beaten by Saudi military police, deported from Libya and Iran, captured and held for a week by the Iraqi Republican Guard during the Shiite rebellion following the Gulf War, strafed by Russian MIG-21s in Bosnia, fired upon by Serb snipers, and shelled for days in Sarajevo with deafening rounds of heavy artillery that threw out thousands of deadly bits of iron fragments. I have seen too much of violent death. I have tasted too much of my own fear. I have painful memories that lie buried and untouched most of the time. It is never easy when they surface."

What Every Person Should Know About War (2003)

Hedges is also the author of What Every Person Should Know About War (ISBN 1417721049), a book he worked on with several combat veterans.

From the publisher:

"Chris Hedges offers a critical -- and fascinating -- lesson in the dangerous realities of our age: a stark look at the effects of war on combatants. Utterly lacking in rhetoric or dogma, this manual relies instead on bare fact, frank description, and a spare question-and-answer format. Hedges allows U.S. military documentation of the brutalizing physical and psychological consequences of a combat to speak for itself."

Losing Moses on the Freeway (2005)

Losing Moses on the Freeway: The 10 Commandments in America (ISBN 0743255135) was published in June 2005. The book was inspired by the Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kie?lowski and his ten-part film series The Decalogue. Hedges wrote about lives, including his own, which had been consumed by one of the violations or issues raised by a commandment.

American Fascists (2007)

The Christian Right and the War on America (ISBN 0743284437) was published in January 2007.In this book, Hedges argues that the Christian fundamentalist movement emerging today in the United States resembles the early fascist movements in Italy and Germany at the beginning of the last century, and therefore constitutes a gathering threat to American democracy.

I Don't Believe in Atheists (2008)

I Don't Believe in Atheists (ISBN 141656795X), published in March 2008, is a critique of what Hedges perceives as a radical mindset that rages against religion and faith. Hedges states the book was motivated by debates he had with atheist authors Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens whom Hedges feels excessively demonize religion, particularly Islam, in ways that Hedges believed were eerily similar to the thinking of Christian fundamentalists. The 2009 paperback edition (1416570780) was retitled When Atheism Becomes Religion: America's New Fundamentalists.

Collateral Damage (2008)

Collateral Damage: America's War Against Iraqi Civilians (ISBN 1568583737), with Laila Al-Arian.

From the publisher:

"In this devastating exposé of a military occupation gone awry, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Chris Hedges and journalist Laila Al-Arian reveal the terrifying reality of daily civilian life in Iraq at the hands of U.S. troops. Based on hundreds of hours of interviews with combat veterans, Collateral Damage represents the largest number of named eyewitnesses from within the U.S. military to have testified on the record. These veterans, many of whom have come to oppose the war, explain the tactics and operations that have turned many Iraqis against the U.S. military.

...

"The soldiers and Marines interviewed in Collateral Damage describe the venality of a war fought largely out of view of journalists and television cameras. A stark and unflinching narrative, [it] exposes the true consequences of the war that the American government has unleashed in Iraq.

Empire of Illusion (2009)

The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle (ISBN 9781568584379) was published in July 2009. An exposition of Hedges's socialist opinions, Empire of Illusion is heavily influenced by Marxist Critical theory: Hedges repeatedly references the ideas of Theodor Adorno and Karl Polanyi, and also refers to Karl Marx's concepts of "superstructure" and an inevitable collapse of capitalism.

From the publisher:

"Pulitzer prize—winner Chris Hedges charts the dramatic and disturbing rise of a post-literate society that craves fantasy, ecstasy and illusion.

Chris Hedges argues that we now live in two societies: One, the minority, functions in a print-based, literate world, that can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth. The other, a growing majority, is retreating from a reality-based world into one of false certainty and magic. In this “other society,” serious film and theatre, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins.

In the tradition of Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism and Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, Hedges navigates this culture ... attending WWF contests as well as Ivy League graduation ceremonies ... exposing an age of terrifying decline and heightened self-delusion."

Video links

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Audio links

• Chis Hedges lecture on corporate power and media January 9, 2010 web audio lists and program times
• Chris Hedges interviewed on Humankind Public Radio November 15, 2009
• Chris Hedges and Adam Sternbergh on CBC debate the effect of sensational pop culture September 16, 2009
• Chris Hedges talks on consumer culture, the cult of the self, corporations and media manipulation. July 22, 2009
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• War Is A Force... Reading by Criss. (suitable for dial-up users)
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• Chris Hedges presents his newest book, Empire of Illusion http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/36777

Chris Hedges