Yusuke Hishida:
What I am aiming for is being a witness of the history. Yet that does not mean listening to presidential speeches nor standing on the front line in the war. My desire is to see how the speeches or the battles would affect people's daily lives. Now in the 21st century, history has been progressing faster than ever. The conventional world has all too easily collapsed but people have to rebuild their daily lives instead of grieving. Although our world is far more fragile and cruel than we thought, history requires us to overcome them. I determined to face the brutal modern world through my camera lens.

I came to believe that there was only one way to find own raison d’être in the twenty-first century and so I decided to make a personal pilgrimage to New York, Afghanistan, and Iraq. This book crystallizes my with to witness history in the making.
That day, Tokyo was busy with the news of a typhoon hitting the metropolis, I finished my shoot of the flooded Tamagawa River. I was facing my computer screen in my dark room with the TV turned off. At that time, “war” belonged to the realm of history, or so I thought. Surprised by a new bulletin on my cell phone, I immediately turned on the TV. Tension was emanating from the CNN picture. In an instant, the second plane crashed into the World Trade Center.