Unembedded: Two Decades of Maverick War Reporting.

J.L. Granatstein is a history professor at York University and author of
War and Peacekeeping and For Better or For Worse.

Scott Taylor is a well-known journalist and columnist, the publisher of the military magazine Esprit de Corps, and a bit of a self-proclaimed rebel and dung disturber. A former soldier, he has had admirers and detractors of his journalism, and both groups will find ample evidence for their positions in his new memoir, Unembedded: Two Decades of Maverick War Reporting. In typical Taylor style, the title boldly sets out his position: he is a maverick who never buys the official line, right or wrong, and who refuses to be embedded with the troops in the former Yugoslavia or Baghdad or Kandahar. Instead, he remains outside the control of the U.S. or Canadian or NATO press minders who might constrain his freedom of action, his ability to report as he wishes, and his freedom to talk to anyone when and where he wishes. The quality of the results can best be judged by his readers, but there can be little doubt that his methods have exposed Taylor to great risk, including beatings and being repeatedly threatened with execution by mujahedeen in Iraq in 2004. Taylor survived, and this book says something of his pluck.