Are we afraid of war? Has the advancement of military technology created a mindset of invincibility on the battlefield? In War X, Tim Blackmore argues that the technology of warfare has essentially erased the human body from battlespace. The result is a physical and psychological distance between humanity and bloodshed. As the machinery of war develops, and as advances are made in the biological sciences, war becomes increasingly palatable--attractive, even -- resulting in a sanitized murder culture in which war in anticipated and viewed with little anxiety. Blackmore makes connections between human begins in battle and the very different world of weapons manufacturers, finding between the two a romance of war technology. Using science fiction literature and film, personal war narratives, biographies, and military imagery, he explores the human body in war and the ways in which soldiers imagine themselves superhuman - posthuman - protected by the armour of muscles and steel, tanks and helicopters, robotics and remote control. War X is an explosive introduction to the discussion of modern warfare and a timely consideration of industrial warfare. It is also a deliberation on the startling world of new weapon development, and the indescribable future of war that beckons.
