The definitive collection of nonfiction—from war reporting to literary criticism to the sharpest political writing—from the “legend of American letters” ( Vanity Fair ) Robert Stone was a singular American writer, a visionary whose award-winning novels—including Dog Soldiers, Outerbridge Reach , and Damascus Gate —earned him comparisons to literary lions ranging from Samuel Beckett to Ernest Hemingway to Graham Greene. Stone had an almost prophetic grasp of the spirit of his age, which he captured with crystalline clarity in each of his novels. Of course, he was also a sharp and brilliant observer of American life, and his nonfiction writing is revelatory.     The Eye You See With —the first and only collection of Robert Stone’s nonfiction—was carefully selected by award-winning novelist and Stone biographer Madison Smartt Bell. Divided into three sections, the collection includes the best of Stone’s war reporting, his writing on social change, and his reflections on the art of fiction. This is an extraordinary volume that offers up a clear-eyed look at the twentieth century and secures Robert Stone’s place as one of the most original figures in all of American letters.  "Novelist Bell presents a sterling collection of essays on literature, culture, politics, and war by the late Stone (1937–2015), best known for his National Book Award–winning novel Dog Soldiers. Spanning the 1970s to the aughts, the essays demonstrates Stone’s remarkable capacity for capturing an era’s ethos while making larger, and still current, points...Throughout, Bell provides useful biographical information, which in combination with the essays provides a vivid portrait of Stone’s background and guiding philosophy. Fans of Stone’s novels will especially appreciate the insight, but any reader of narrative nonfiction will find plenty of interest in this fine collection." - Publishers Weekly  "This first collection of Stone's nonfiction, edited by his biographer, Madison Smartt Bell showcases the same dizzying welter of ideas and passions that defines Stone's landmark fiction...In 'What Fiction Is For,' he says that 'art is the only medium we have for removing a moment from the whirl of events and placing it under scrutiny in all its dimensions.' These essays, however, argue persuasively that, for Stone, nonfiction can do the same thing." - Booklist ROBERT STONE (1937–2015) was the acclaimed author of eight novels and two story collections, including  Dog Soldiers, winner of the National Book Award, and  Bear and His Daughter, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His memoir, Prime Green, was published in 2007. MADISON SMARTT BELL is the author of thirteen novels, including All Soul’s Rising , which was a finalist for the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, and two short story collections. In 2008, he received the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is currently a professor of English at Goucher College and lives in Baltimore, Maryland. On a clear day in the spring of 1862, two orbs rose quietly into the skies above southeastern Virginia. For the soldiers in the Confederate encampment below, it must have been a wondrous, if demoralizing, sight. These strange forms were Union hot-air balloons, each with two observers in the basket, spies in the firmament. If the observers had cameras—and word was that they did—they would be able to produce perfect records of what they saw, instant maps of the Confederate positions that would soon, no doubt, be conveyed to the upper reaches of the Union Army’s chain of command.   “We watched with anxious eyes their beautiful observations as they floated high up in the air,” Confederate general James Longstreet later wrote of the encounter. To Longstreet and his troops, it was clear they were witnessing a turning point in the history of war. It was also clear that there was nothing they could do about it. The balloons, Longstreet lamented, were “well out of range of our guns.”   One hundred and fifty-five years later, on a searingly hot afternoon in June 2017, Steve Suddarth, a former US Air Force colonel, is radioing air traffic control for clearance to take off from Albuquerque International Sunport, the city’s main airport. The flight, he tells the tower, is a “photo mission.” Riding shotgun in Suddarth’s white single-prop Cessna, I am not sure I would have used such a mild term to describe our plan. The plane is equipped with a military-grade surveillance camera, and we intend to watch wide tracts of the city in a way many of its residents probably never imagined was even possible.   Air traffic control grants us free rein within a broad swath of airspace 12,000 feet directly above the city center. As we climb out of  the airport through the choppy desert air, the landscape falls quickly from our wings. Soon enough, the entire town lies rolled out below us, shimmering in the afternoon sun.   Mounted on the windshield is a tablet displa