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| | Observer | Achilles's last stand |
 | | The shield of Achilles was hammered and forged into shape, according to The Iliad, by Hephaestus, who inscribed on it the history of its own making, a tormented saga of unremitting strife, havoc and death. |
 | | It was Auden's poem about September 1939 that people emailed to each other in New York last autumn; here it is his reflection on the Homeric shield that Bobbitt quotes before writing his postscript about America's 'historic wound'. |
 | | This review of Philip Bobbitt's The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History misrepresented the views of Sir Michael Howard, author of the book's introduction. |
| observer.guardian.co.uk /print/0,3858,4434391-102280,00.html (1037 words) |
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