...[a] grim and important new book ... In Wartime is a fast-paced and very topical book, an old-fashioned series of magazine-crafted war dispatches, but Judah's expertise is appealingly ambitious in its scope. But the book's main strength is in its detail-work ... Readers won't forget the pathos and violence Tim Judah has described, and they owe him a vote of thanks for that.
...despite its flaws, In Wartime is essential for anyone who wants to understand events in Ukraine and what they portend for the West ... Mr. Judah has written the first important book about the war in Ukraine, and it should be on the shelf of every diplomat and journalist shipping out to the region
...[Judah] builds up a plausible composite portrait of a Ukraine ideologically bifurcated yet still sadly homogeneous in its poverty, isolation, and insecurity. Unfortunately, we can hardly double-check his picture, for he serves up his interviews in watery stews: an original word or two, once in a while a verbatim phrase, and all the rest summarized by him. Why on earth an experienced journalist would do this is beyond me...This is so ubiquitous a fault in his book as to nearly extinguish what could have been a deep and diverse compilation of voices ... Judah gives a very helpful overview of Ukraine’s systemic economic difficulties...he is interested in structures and world pictures. He often succeeds in making his abstractions vivid ... he is brave, thoughtful, self-effacing, and effective.
The historical analysis in In Wartime: Stories From Ukraine is deep, fastidious and detailed. Judah articulately and comprehensively explains what happened in the region during World War II, and the important connection between history and present-day violence ... I only wish In Wartime contained more of these tactile descriptions of place and writing that illuminate the story and its characters ... What he does do is succeed in delivering an impartial account of the situation today that depicts people from all sides of the conflict in a fair and respectful way ... In Wartime makes me understand in the end, but it doesn't make me care.
If, as Judah writes in the introduction, his aim was to give an 'impression of what Ukraine feels like, now, in wartime,' he succeeds, largely due to the dozens of interviews he conducts ... Collectively, their voices resonate with the reader, instilling a lasting impression of a nation at once divided in loyalties and in the throes of a war — a real and somewhat bizarre one — a quarter-century after independence from the Soviet Union.
Judah also makes it clear in his lively blend of research and personal narratives that nationality and history are fungible. Poland, Romania, Russia, Austria-Hungary and Nazi Germany have ruled parts of Ukraine, moving or eliminating whole ethnic enclaves at times ... In Wartime resonates in our polyglot nation’s presidential race because Trump admires the strongman Putin and because he has financial ties to Russia. Both in Ukraine and now in Syria, Putin’s legions of what Judah calls 'sofa warriors' fold new layers of spin and denial into history’s volatile mix. Putin is here, too, in a certain way.
