Leah Zani is a public anthropologist, who applies her understanding of cultural practices to learning about the after-effects of war, in this case the U.S.’s secret bombing campaign in Laos. ‘Strike Patterns’ relates her time traveling with international bomb clearance teams in the Laotian countryside, learning with villagers the techniques for making land safe to farm and build on. The book is sensitive and poetic in its descriptions of the land, the people, and particularly their spiritual and cultural beliefs. She argues that war is never really over for those on whose land it is fought, even for women and children. There is so much to this book, it is hard to put into words, but at a time when 16 months of Putin’s war against Ukraine has ruined a land mass the size of Austria, Zani’s work makes me wonder if humans even deserve the beautiful planet we live on.