Aside from its dangers to combatants, war can be devastating to civilian populations as well. This is particularly true of impoverished countries, which may lack basic medical infrastructure, reliable food distribution, aid and relief services, and other safety nets that richer nations take for granted. Today, according to the World Bank, more than one billion people live in fragile and conflict-afflicted states (FCS), mostly in Asia and Africa. For these civilians, the many dangers of daily life include not only direct violence but also starvation, disease, forced relocation, and severe psychological trauma, which can lead to mental illness and suicide.

As The Clay Marble suggests, some conflicts may be deadlier for civilians than for the soldiers who fight them. The Cambodian Civil War, which culminated in the Cambodian Genocide, is a case in point: Various estimates put the number of civilian deaths between 1.5 and 3 million people, or 20-40% of the population. The Clay Marble does not describe, in any detail, the mass murder perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge regime upon its own people, since the book’s action begins after the Vietnamese Army has liberated the country, but the trauma and losses of the past five years are amply hinted at by, for instance, the “tally of the dead” that prefaces every conversation between strangers in the aid camps (16).