Sebastian Junger's "Tribe" chosen as 2017-18 Common Read selection

Tribe book cover
Credit: Penn State

Sebastian Junger’s Tribe: on Homecoming and Belonging is Penn State Altoona’s Common Read selection for 2017-18.

Junger is the best-selling author of WAR, The Perfect Storm, A Death in Belmont, and Fire. He has also directed the documentaries Restrepo and Korengal. As a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and as a contributor to ABC News, he has covered international news stories and has earned the National Magazine Award and an SAIS Novartis Prize for Journalism.

One of the central arguments of Junger’s Tribe: on Homecoming and Belonging is that “Modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary. It’s time for that to end.”

To further this argument Junger discusses “typical" tribal communities and then moves into examinations of those in war-torn areas, including London during the Blitz and Sarajevo, as well as military troops, especially those deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. He focuses on the powerful communal bonds created in these groups and how people who survive such situations often find themselves missing the battle-filled environment in which they felt they had a purpose and connection with others.Tribe then examines PTSD as a side effect of soldiers leaving the close bonds they’ve formed in their military platoons and returning to a disconnected modern society, and argues that regaining a sense of closeness may be the key to our psychological survival.

A line-up of fall-semester events connected to Tribe: on Homecoming and Belonging is forthcoming.

Contact Laura Rotunno, coordinator of the Penn State Altoona “Common Read, Uncommon Experiences” program, with any questions at [email protected].