"An extraordinary immersion into the daily lives of Russian veterans. Never before has an ethnographic inquiry allowed us to come so close to the subjective realities of the effects of war and of its disenchanting aftermath on combatants. Overturning the commonplaces that punctuate classic post-war narratives through writing of rare power that weaves together the intimate and collective history, the author does more than demonstrate: he describes a world, a form of life, in which war is ever-present. Even when the guns have fallen silent, wars never end; they flood everyday life, animate gestures, creep into conversations, slip into jokes, pollute dreams, and alter emotional relationships. To conduct an ethnography of the ghosts of war is not merely to evoke the memory of the departed; it is war itself that is at stake here, but in its most timeless form, like an indelible shadow haunting the heart of life. A masterful demonstration of the extraordinary importance of the details of daily life."---Richard Rechtman, EHESS – École des hautes études en sciences sociales

“War and the Pull of Life is an original and sensitive ethnography of Russian war veterans’ civilian lives. Hervouet-Zeiber deftly reports on the aspects of everyday life that only careful and skilled ethnography can capture. His argument points to the continuity of experiences across multiple conflicts as well as the presence of war and violence for veterans in so-called civilian life, even as he is careful to show how his findings resist any easy framing.”---Eugene Raikhel, University of Chicago

“Hervouet-Zeiber’s groundbreaking focus on Russian veterans illuminates a new aspect to veteran life, the multigenerational and multi-conflict dimensions of veteran experience. This rich ethnography makes its case through powerfully attending to specific lives and stories.”---Jocelyn Chua, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Grégoire Hervouet-Zeiber is an anthropologist based in Montréal.