Judith Matloff

In 1997, she published Fragments of a Forgotten War, a damning account of Angola's slide back into civil war in 1992, drawing on first-hand reporting in Africa as a staff correspondent for Reuters. The book argued that in its rush to end Cold War proxy wars on the continent, the international community steered the country into a presidential election prematurely, and then failed to respond robustly when rebel leader Jonas Savimbi rejected his defeat and returned to the bush. BBC correspondent Fergal Keane called Matloff "one of the most astute observers of Africa" and said the book "should be read by anybody who cares about humanity."[8]

In 2008, she published a memoir about starting a family after her return to New York in a fixer-upper brownstone in West Harlem. The purchase of the building was an impulse buy—it turns out to have once been a crack house and that the street is controlled by a narcotics dealer—and she and her husband must charm lax construction workers, bold drug dealers and strange neighbors in one of the country's biggest drug zones. Matloff focuses not on herself or even the house, but, as the Kirkus Reviews says "her thrilling, problem-plagued neighborhood, colorfully portrayed in terms that are neither frightened nor naive." The book received mainly positive reviews, with the Library Journal and Rocky Mountain News praising Matloff's storytelling skills, the Tucson Citizen calling the book "hugely entertaining."[9]

In this 2017 book, Matloff explores why mountains are home to 10 percent of the world’s population yet host a strikingly disproportionate share of the world’s conflicts. She traveled 72,000 miles over five continents to investigate the geographic link between, among others, Albanian blood feuds, separatist struggles in Dagestan and Kashmir, and Mexican vigilante squads facing down narcotics cartels. She explores military solutions while with NATO troops in the Arctic and American mountain soldiers, to conclude that autonomy is the best approach. Matloff advances the argument, hailed by the author Robert Kaplan as "original", that the physical remoteness creates existential alienation as well, and that Switzerland's canton system presents a promising model for avoiding conflict. The book received starred reviews by Publishers Weekly and Booklist. The latter called it "impressive and necessary… Matloff approaches her topic with a magic combination of wisdom and empathy, and it is impossible to not be moved." Dean of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism Steve Coll described the book as "classical international journalism of the highest order."[10]

In her 2020 book, Matloff gives practical advice earned from her years of experience on everything from constructing a bunker to preventing bank fraud to staying clean in a shelter. The humorously written book received praise from Booklist and Bust magazine with the former calling it "a sobering, useful guide to dealing with ever-more prevalent problems."[4][11][12] The writer Gretchen Rubin wrote of it, "extremely practical, laugh-out-loud funny, and somehow very comforting.” while Sebastian Junger wrote "If you’re going to read one book to prepare for the unthinkable, read this one."[4]