From the tragic workings of the Holocaust and Hiroshima to contemporary examples of genocide in Bosnia and Rwanda, this provocative collection of original essays examines the enduring impact of cataclysmic events on the modern human psyche. Inspired by the career of Robert Jay Lifton, the distinguished contributors use a wide range of disciplinary and methodological approaches to probe society, culture, and politics in the nuclear age and they explore the therapeutic value of artistic expression to witnesses and survivors of mass violence. The essays convey a message of hope by displaying the remarkable diversity of human responses to extreme adversity and by concluding that intellectuals and professionals have an abiding obligation to act responsibly in a world of violence and to provide healing images of transformation. Contributors: Paul Boyer, John M. Broughton, Harvey Cox, Wendy Doniger, Bonnie Dugger, Kai Erikson, Richard Falk, Michael Flynn, Eva Fogelman, John Fousek, Elinor Fuchs, Lane Gerber, Charles Green, Hillel Levine, John E. Mack, Karen Malpede, Eric Markusen, Saul Mendlovitz, Greg Mitchell, George L. Mosse, Ashis Nandy, Martin J. Sherwin, Victor W. Sidel, Bennett Simon, Charles B. Strozier, Steven M. Weine, Roger Williamson, Howard Zin

The ABCs of Human Survival examines the effect of militant nationalism and the lawlessness of powerful states on the well-being of individuals, local communities, and global citizenship. Based on the analysis of world events, Dr. Arthur Clark presents militant nationalism as a pathological pattern of thinking that threatens our security, while emphasizing effective democracy and international law as indispensable frameworks for human protection. Within the contexts of history, sociology, philosophy, and spirituality, The ABCs of Human Survival calls into question the assumptions of consumer culture and offers, as an alternative, strategies to improve overall well-being through the important choices we make as individuals.

This timely handbook offers an examination of man's history of war crimes and the parallel development of rules of war to prevent them in the future. Kosovo, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Darfur, Auschwitz. War crimes have occurred in regions around the world and continue to this day. Although atrocities are as old as war itself, they did not become punishable crimes until the law evolved to define them as such. War Crimes, Genocide, and the Law: A Guide to the Issues examines the types of war crimes and the motivations behind them, as well as the laws that seek to control and abolish these heinous acts. Within the handbook, centuries of war crimes and genocides are analyzed and catalogued. At the same time, the author offers a history of the development of the rules of war, enabling readers to grasp the importance of such precedent-setting events as the 1946 Nuremberg Trials, and to see the gradual evolution of the laws intended to punish perpetrators and prevent future barbarism.

The 1948 Genocide Convention has suddenly become a vital legal tool in the international campaign against impunity. The succinct provisions of the Convention are now being interpreted in important judgements by the International Court of Justice, the ad hoc Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and a growing number of domestic courts. In this definitive work William A. Schabas focuses on the judicial interpretation of the Convention, debates in the International Law Commission, political statements in bodies like the General Assembly of the United Nations, and the growing body of case law. Detailed attention is given to the concept of protected groups, to the quantitative dimension of genocide, to problems of criminal prosecution including defenses and complicity, and to issues of international judicial cooperations such as extradition. He also explores the duty to prevent genocide, and the consequences this may have on the emerging law of humanitarian intervention.

This is the first textbook of its kind to amass cases of genocide and other mass atrocities across the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries that have largely been pushed to the periphery of Genocide Studies or “forgotten” altogether. Divided into four thematic sections – Genocide and Imperialism; War and Genocide; State Repression, Military Dictatorships, and Genocide; and Human-Caused Famine, Attrition, and Genocide – A Modern History of Forgotten Genocides and Mass Atrocities covers five continents, including case studies from Biafra, Yemen, Argentina, Russia, China, and Bengal. They range from the French conquest of Algeria in the mid-nineteenth century to the Yazidi genocide perpetrated by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria between 2014 and 2017, and show that at times of rising authoritarianism, military conquest, and weaponization of hunger, lines between what is war and what is genocide are increasingly blurred. By including genocides and mass atrocities that are often overlooked, this volume is crucial to the ongoing debates about whether “this atrocity or that one” amounts to genocide. By including key points, events, terms, and critical questions throughout, this is the ideal textbook for undergraduate students who study genocide, mass atrocities, and human rights across the globe.

During the Holocaust, 99 percent of all Jewish killings were carried out by members of state organizations. In this groundbreaking book, Stefan Kühl offers a new analysis of the integral role that membership in organizations played in facilitating the annihilation of European Jews under the Nazis. Drawing on the well-researched case of the mass killings of Jews by a Hamburg reserve police battalion, Kühl shows how ordinary men from ordinary professions were induced to carry out massacres. It may have been that coercion, money, identification with the end goal, the enjoyment of brutality, or the expectations of their comrades impelled the members of the police battalion to join the police units and participate in ghetto liquidations, deportations, and mass shootings. But ultimately, argues Kühl, the question of immediate motives, or indeed whether members carried out tasks with enthusiasm or reluctance, is of secondary importance. The crucial factor in explaining what they did was the integration of individuals into an organizational framework that prompted them to perform their roles. This book makes a major contribution to our understanding of the Holocaust by demonstrating the fundamental role played by organizations in persuading ordinary Germans to participate in the annihilation of the Jews. It will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of organizations, violence, and modern German history, as well as for anyone interested in genocide and the Holocaust.

This critical anthology draws on current theoretical movements to examine the breadth of Asian American literature from the earliest to the most recent writers. Covering fiction, essays, poetry, short stories, ethnography, and autobiography, Form and Transformation in Asian American Literature advances the development of a theoretically informed, historically and culturally specific methodology for studying this increasingly complex field. The essays in this anthology probe into hotly debated issues as well as understudied topics, including the relations between Asian American and other minority American writings.

The book highlights new imaginaries required to transcend traditional approaches to law and development. The authors focus on injustices and harms to people and the environment, and confront global injustices involving impoverishment, patriarchy, forced migration, global pandemics and intellectual rights in traditional medicine resulting from maldevelopment, bad governance and aftermaths of colonialism. New imaginaries emphasise deconstruction of fashionable myths of law, development, human rights, governance and post-coloniality to focus on communal and feminist relationality, non-western legal systems, personal responsibility for justice and forms of resistance to injustices. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of development, law and development, feminism, international law, environmental law, governance, politics, international relations, social justice and activism.

A comprehensive examination of the sacredness of human life, encompassing biblical roots, theological elaborations, historical cases, and contemporary ethical perspectives. Gushee argues that viewing human life as sacred is one of the most precious legacies of biblical faith-- albeit one that the church has too often failed to uphold.

Despite the economic utopianism brought on by globalization, effective solutions to the persistent plight of urban blacks throughout the African diaspora continue to elude scholars, politicians, and community leaders. Charles Green brings a decade of research and original fieldwork in Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States to investigate the interface of the historic racism faced by these urban communities and contemporary trends of globalization. Green pays particular attention to the condition of the youth, whose aspirations, vulnerabilities, and insights into their own conditions are central to the future prospects for their communities as a whole. Considering the impacts of economic restructuring and cultural diffusion alike, his analysis asserts the importance of both global ties and local distinctiveness. Ultimately, Manufacturing Powerlessness aims to encourage the formation of alliances throughout the diaspora so that urban black communities can manufacture a future of empowerment. Visit the author's web page