You start with his debut masterpiece, The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer has repeatedly told the reality about war. Why Are We at War? returns Mailer to the gravity from the battlefield and the grand hubris of the politicians who send soldiers there to perish. First published in the early times of the Iraq Battle, Why Are We at Battle? can be an explosive discussion about the American quest for empire that still holds excess weight today. Scrutinizing the Bush administration’s phrases and actions, Mailer unleashes his brand moral rigor: “Because democracy can be noble, it is always endangered…. To believe blithely that people can export democracy into any country we choose can serve paradoxically to motivate more fascism in the home and abroad.”