ABSTRACT
When I began this project, I did not expect thatmost of the stories would take place in conflictzones. As a child of refugees, I resisted this sad reality for a long time, until I could resist it no longer. The war stories came in at an unrelenting pace. As I write, almost one in five of the 191 nations in the world is at war-declared or undeclared-with another nation or within its own borders. In 2001 and 2002, 40 percent of all wars were being fought in Africa. But there were also renewed border clashes in Korea and Kashmir, suicide bombings in Israel, intensified Israeli military occupation in Palestine, an attack on the World Trade Center in New York, the bombing of Afghanistan, continuing war in Chechnya, internecine fighting in Colombia. Wars end, new ones begin. Most, but not all, take place in underdeveloped states, often former colonies, or former client-states, of richer first-world nations.
