Simone Weil a brilliant young teacher philosopher and social activist wrote the essay The Iliad or the Poem of Force at France at the beginning of World War II. Her profound meditation on the nature of violence provides a remarkably vivid and accessible testament of the Greek epics continuing relevance to our lives. This celebrated work appears here for the first time in a bilingual version based on the text of the authoritative edition of the authors complete writings. An introduction discusses the significance of the essay both in the evolution of Weils thought and as a distinctively iconoclastic contribution to Homeric studies. The commentary draws on recent interpretations of the Iliad and examines the parallels between Weils vision of Homers warriors and the experiences of modern soldiers.