I recently listened to the audiobook of CNN correspondent Anderson Cooper's memoirs of his life as a war correspondent. It's an eye-opening and provocative read (or in my case, listen) for those of us interested in world affairs. If you don't feel like sitting down to read it, I would highly recommend listening to it while you're doing a project or driving, especially since it's read by Mr. Cooper himself.
Despite his family background (his father was a theater and movie actor, his mother was designer and socialite Gloria Vanderbilt) and an Ivy League education, Cooper struggled to find work after college, settling for a low-end job at ABC News and wasn't able to move to a higher position there, and ended up going off literally on his own as a freelancer to cover conflicts in Burma, Somalia and Bosnia, witnessing the atrocities with his own eyes. He also witnessed the first open elections in South Africa and got a good sense of the racism that was still rampant among whites towards the natives in that country, as well as the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
As someone who can't stand violence and wars, I wondered why he would subject himself to such atrocities. Cooper had struggled to find meaning in his life, having dealt with the death of his father when he was 10 and the suicide of his brother when he was in his early 20s, and traveled the world in search of it. In a way, I have also spent the last several years for the same thing, trying to make sense of my place in the world and to try and understand why people think a certain way and why events unfold the way they do. I've managed to uncover, somewhat the complexities of countries like China, France and Australia in a way I could not have sitting at home in California.
As I listened to his reflections on Bosnia, it only fueled my desire to visit the Balkans when I (hopefully) trek around Eastern Europe next spring. I can't wait to witness the peace that has settled over a region that was war-torn just over a decade ago.