AMBUSHED is a fascinating, in-depth look at the extraordinary day-to-day life of a war correspondent. Stewart presents a compelling portrait of the often surreal world that journalists inhabit as they bear witness to violence and give voice to the unspeakable. Appalled by the level of cruelty he witnessed, Stewart was shocked by the indifference of the outside world. Though his stories were sometimes buried deep inside the daily papers, or published not at all, he kept reporting the truth. When armed rebels entered Sierra Leone's besieged capital of Freetown, Stewart and two of his colleagues were ambushed while driving down the street on assignment. One of his colleagues was killed instantly, and Stewart, shot in the head, had a twenty-percent chance of surviving. Astonishingly, he did. With frankness and courage, Stewart tells the story of his extraordinary recovery and the tremendous risks he and other journalists take to give us the news.

He is grim witness to events more terrible and tragic than most people, as he learns, care to encounter outside of fiction. Stewart carries on, nevertheless, with an almost messianic fervor to save the truth in the lives of the world's most destitute people from oblivion. There is a personal price to be paid, he learns, but he won't understand how steep it is until after the book's critical event, when the meaning of life changes completely in an instant.

What follows is the account of a man almost as humbled and trapped as the war victims he once wrote about. His story of that new life is no less dramatic than his telling of the previous one. Bizarre dreams often seem to be the only glue holding the two experiences together for him. Victories are hard fought and sometimes disappointing. But it turns out that he is, more than anything else, a fighter.

Like good fiction, the book, in the end, delivers a story even more compelling than the one it promises at the beginning. One leaves the book looking over Stewart's shoulder as he recognizes a mountain he once thought he knew from the vivid, more enlightened perspective of one who has climbed it.


Reader from New York City   October 26, 2002
 2 out of 2 found this review helpful

This book is a fierce page-turner that rumbles through until the very last page. Ian Stewart gives an honest and sobering account of what it's like to cover war in a region that has forever played second fiddle to the headline news. From where Stewart was filing, all the glory associated with war reportage had dried up and gone. All that remained was barbarism and terror. The book makes a powerful statement about the great myth of war and how it sits with a man --soldier or reporter --once he's on the other side of it.
We're lucky that Stewart made it out alive. This book is a must read for any young journalist, or anyone for that matter who enjoys a powerful story.


Truly moving account of discovery, tragedy, and courage   November 10, 2002
 2 out of 2 found this review helpful

Ian Stewartys account of conflict journalism during his time with the UPI and AP is disturbingly honest. Though Stewart confesses to being an adrenaline junkie, his narrative clearly reveals a truly compassionate professional driven to cover conflict in order to reveal atrocities that threaten human rights and more crucially human lives. Unfortunately, Ambushed is also an account of how time and time again the deaths of children, families, and communities in places like Sierra Leon are underexposed. Stewart writes about the frustration of writing countless stories about war torn regions that are never published, because the public is simply not interested. From his description is seems that this injustice lies not in the field of news coverage, but rather on the desks of news editors who choose not to print stories about Africa, the continent relegated to the back pages at best by media corporations. So civil wars, that translate into thousands upon thousands of civilian deaths go unheeded. Stewartys descriptions of the conflicts that he witnessed, predominantly based on stories that heyd written for the wire, turn a careful and compassionate eye to the victims (both survivors and casualties). His attention to detail far exceeds event coverage (i.e. date, time, and body count) by attending to humane details and the individual consequences of tragedy for victims of war, whose stories he cared enough to tell. Stewartys own life was dramatically transformed, January 1999, when rebel soldiers in Freetown ambushed his car. His account of recovery, physically and psychologically are incredibly candid, and truly extend the sense of tragedy and courage to the reader. Ian Stewart has a great deal to be proud of in his career as a foreign correspondent, and undoubtedly has many more great talents and works to share with the world. I recommend this book without reservation to anyone with a heart.


The Unexpected   September 28, 2002
 1 out of 1 found this review helpful

With the drive and intensity of an experienced war correspondent, Stewart files the most important story of his career: his own. And, as the reader will come to realize, he has to do it with one hand more or less tied behind his back.

He is grim witness to events more terrible and tragic than most people, as he learns, care to encounter outside of fiction. Stewart carries on, nevertheless, with an almost messianic fervor to save the truth in the lives of the world's most destitute people from oblivion. There is a personal price to be paid, he learns, but he won't understand how steep it is until after the book's critical event, when the meaning of life changes completely in an instant.

What follows is the account of a man almost as humbled and trapped as the war victims he once wrote about. His story of that new life is no less dramatic than his telling of the previous one. Bizarre dreams often seem to be the only glue holding the two experiences together for him. Victories are hard fought and sometimes disappointing. But it turns out that he is, more than anything else, a fighter.

Like good fiction, the book, in the end, delivers a story even more compelling than the one it promises at the beginning. One leaves the book looking over Stewart's shoulder as he recognizes a mountain he once thought he knew from the vivid, more enlightened perspective of one who has climbed it.


Listen up Ben Affleck and Matt Damon   October 17, 2002
 1 out of 1 found this review helpful

This book would make a great movie! An account of the adrenaline habit of one war correspondent, his fixation with the rush of danger, and the pull of cameraderie under extreme pressure, it's also a look at the intense kind of friendship/rivalry that makes this kind of reporting especially addictive. A great buddy movie, in fact.

It's also a moving account of recovery from a near-fatal injury to the brain -- an exploration of the struggle one man goes through to regain a life after damage to the organ most central to who we are. And it poses an important question:, SHOULD these (usually) young reporters be thrown into sometimes obscure wars to satisfy an ever more hungry public.

Mr. Stewart has survived his ordeal and come out a winner. Others have not been so lucky.

I would heartily recommend this book to anyone interested in a good exciting read, both political and medical, punctuated with some important questions about what we ask of the people who bring us the news.