DECLARATIONS OF WAR.

London: Jonathan Cape, 1971. 205 pp, 8 3/4" H, black boards with gilt lettering on spine, maroon top edge of textblock and endpapers. "In this (collection of short stories) about men at war, Len Deighton slyly traps the reader into an involvement far deeper than he bargains for. A series of literary jump-cuts between actions as far apart as the Punjab and an S.A.C. base in Vietnam takes you inside the minds of men facing the bizarre situations which war produces. Deighton's unfashionable compassion for soldiers and his almost paradoxical hatred of war is the theme of his previous book, 'Bomber'. Here he expands and develops the idea that the strategies and machines of war push men into dehumanized, machine-like roles which they are very ill-equipped to cope with." Contents: It Must Have Been Two Other Fellows; Winter's Morning; First Base; Paper Casualty; Brent's Deus Ex Machina; A New Way to Say Goodnight; Lord Nick Flies Again; Discipline; Mission Control: Hannibal One; Adagio; Bonus for a Salesman; Action; Twelve Good Men and True. Minor browning to the fore-edge of the text block, light lean to the spine, a few tiny specs of colour loss on the top of the text block, minor wrinkling to the bottom of the spine. Dust jacket has been price-clipped, light edge wear/wrinkling at the top/bottom of the spine and flap-folds, now protected in removable mylar sleeve.. Not Signed. First Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good/Very Good. Illus. by Christopher Foss, dust jacket illustration..