The thing about writing about war is that it’s not about war at all, or about warriors. It’s about people: ordinary people who live through terrible things, and sometimes do terrible things. Didn’t we set up rules to fight by? Didn’t we set up an entire system, called the United Nations, to save us from the scourge of war?

Somini Sengupta, a George Polk Award-winning foreign correspondent for The New York Times, has reported from a Congo River ferry, a Himalayan glacier, the streets of Baghdad and Bombay and many places in between for The New York Times. She reported on diplomacy until recently. Now, she is The Times’ international climate change reporter. She was born in Calcutta, India, and is the author of The End of Karma: Hope and Fury Among India’s Young. She grew up in India, Canada, and the United States, graduating from the University of California at Berkeley.