Author: Peter Maass

I was born and raised in Los Angeles. In 1983, after graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, I went to Brussels as a copy editor for The Wall Street Journal/Europe. I left the Journal in 1985 to write for The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune, covering NATO and the European Union. In 1987 I moved to Seoul, South Korea, where I wrote primarily for The Washington Post. After three years in Asia I moved to Budapest to cover Eastern Europe and the Balkans. I spent most of 1992 and 1993 covering the war in Bosnia for the Post.

Willful Killing

Crimes of War
August 1998
(The following was published in “The Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know,” a handbook about war crimes.)

Slobodan was being a gracious host. Whenever we entered an exposed stretch of territory, he would stop, listen like a terrier for signs of trouble, and ... (Read more)

Mission to Mars, 2008?

Wired
June 1998

The steel door swings shut on the chamber, sealing off the outside world. They feel no fear or regret, the four of them, just eagerness to get on with their new lives. After a stretch of hard work, Nigel Packham showers in filtered urine. Vickie Kloeris downs shots of distilled sweat. ... (Read more)

It’s Risky to Talk Tough on Kosovo

The New York Times
March 10, 1998

The Clinton Administration does not hesitate to express its moral outrage when a crisis unfolds in a place like Kosovo, a province of Serbia where 90 percent of the residents are ethnic Albanians.

“We are not going to stand by and watch the Serbian authorities ... (Read more)

The Fevers of Nationalism

Los Angeles Times
March 1, 1998

(The following is a review of “The Warrior’s Honor: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience” by Michael Ignatieff” and “Unwinnable Wars: American Power and Ethnic Conflict” by David Callahan)

One of the nice things about the Cold War was ... (Read more)

Messages From Mir: How the Mistakes on the Russian Space Station Bring Us Closer to Mars

The New Yorker
October 20, 1997

It was ten at night, the day had been a long one, and before going to sleep Vasily Tsibliyev wanted to call Tamara Globa. She was turning forty, and there was a small party at her Moscow apartment. True to the nature of Russia’s phone system, the connection was ... (Read more)

Welcome to Silicorn Valley

Wired
September 1997

The plane lands without incident at Chicago’s teeming O’Hare International Airport, where everyone’s on a mission, going somewhere, doing something. The industrially correct word for such an airport is hub, but it’s a turnstile more than anything else, flinging ... (Read more)

Love and Fury in the Balkans

The Washington Post
August 20, 1997
(The following is a review of “Montenegro” by Starling Lawrence)

There is a passage in Rebecca West’s classic book about the Balkans, “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon,” in which she wrote of being waked in a Paris hotel room by “the insufficiently ... (Read more)

Righteous Wrath

The New York Times
July 14, 1997

The last time I saw Simo Drljaca, he gave me a friendly pat on the back as I said goodbye. We had spent the better part of a day together, ending it with a beer and a toast to peace. Mr. Drljaca was a warlord in Prijedor, and he gave me a tour of his prison camps: Trnopolje. ... (Read more)

Know Maass

Slate
July 10, 1997

When I first moved to Manhattan, a neighbor approached me in the corridor of my apartment building.

“Are you Peter Maass, the writer?”

Though I have heard this many times over the years, I still don’t know the correct response. Yes, I am; no, I am not. Both are accurate. ... (Read more)

Rwanda, the Sorrow and the Pity

The Washington Post
August 25, 1996
(The following is a review of “Season of Blood: A Rwandan Journey” by Fergal Keane)

HOW DO you explain what war is like? How do you explain the mad violence of drunken soldiers or the spiritual ruins that survivors have been turned into? And how do you ... (Read more)