While Sacco does provide a few pieces of historical and political detail to establish the context of his stories, this book is not an overall account of the war in Bosnia. As he did in PALESTINE, he combines the oral histories of his interviewees with his own observations on conditions in the enclave as well as his feelings about being in a danger zone. He keeps his primary focus on roughly half a dozen people, which helps to structure the collection of vignettes into something of a narrative, while also including interviews with a number of other people. Sacco stands back and lets the interviewees tell their stories, keeping his editorializing and personal reflections to interludes. You can feel his outrage over the conditions and the circumstances, but he doesn't allow that outrage to boil over and distract from the story. Despite the comments of Christopher Hitchens in his introduction, I think this approach serves Sacco well. It ensures that the reader will not be able to distract himself from the brutality and suffering by getting caught up in critiquing the author's tone.

And there is plenty of brutality and devastation here. Sacco's artwork is detailed and expressive, not gruesome for shock value's sake but unflinching in its depictions of wartime injuries and combat medicine under the worst possible conditions. You can't help but wonder not only how human beings could be so cruel to each other, but how other human beings could stand back and let it happen.