Book Description
In a mere quarter-century, restorative justice has grown from a few scattered experimental projects into a worldwide social movement. Moving beyond its origins within the criminal justice arena, restorative justice is now being applied in schools, homes and the workplace.
The restorative justice approach challenges the idea that state punishment is the best method of achieving justice. This "restorative" alternative strives to directly address the needs of all persons affected by a crime or a harm, often by bringing together victims, offenders and community members in some form of structured mediation or dialogue.
The distinguished contributors to this book are all long-term advocates and practitioners of restorative justice from North America, Europe, Australia/New Zealand and South Africa. The 31 chapters confront the key threats to the integrity and effectiveness of the emerging international restorative justice movement: (1) cooptation or diversion from its core mission, and the possibility that reforms may cause unintended consequences; (2) being relegated primarily to "minor" crimes or conflicts, so that it has minimal impact on the overall system or justice; and (3) inherent flaws that undermine its effectiveness, such as failure to address social problems that breed conflicts, and methods skewed by cultural or gender biases.
Book Description
Tackling the crucial issue of our day--the rebuilding of countries following ethnic cleansing and genocide, this book evaluates the role of trials and tribunals with regard to social reconstruction and reconciliation. The voices of the people of Rwanda and Yugoslavia are heard through the results of extensive surveys and recorded conversations. Their thoughts of past and future controversially conclude that international and local trials have little relevance to reconciliation. The contributors find that communities interpret justice far more broadly than defined by the international community and the relationship of trauma to a desire for trials is not clear-cut. An ecological model of social reconstruction is proposed, suggesting that coordinated multi-systematic strategies must be implemented if social repair is to occur. Finally, the contributors suggest that, while trials are essential to combat impunity and punish the guilty, their strengths and limitations must be acknowledged. Eric Stover is Director of the Human Rights Center and Adjunct Professor of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. He was the Executive Director of Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) until December 1995. He has served on several investigations as an "Expert on Mission" to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague. He is author of (with photographer Gilles Peress) The Graves: Srebrenica and Vukovar (Scalo Verlag Ac, 1998), War Crimes in the Balkans: Medicine Under Siege in the former Yugoslavia 1991-1995 (Physicians for Human Rights, 1996), Landmines: A Deadly Legacy (Physicians for Human Rights, 1993) and co-author (with Christopher Joyce) of Witnesses from the Grave (Little Brown, 1992) and The Breaking of Bodies and Minds: Torture, Psychiatric Abuse, and the Health Professions (W.H. Freeman & Co., 1985) Harvey M. Weinstein is Clinical Professor in the Joint Medical Program at the University of California, Berkeley. He has done research in and taught health and human rights, refugee health and mass violence and social reconstruction. Weinstein is a member of the Advisory Council of the State Refugee Health Program, and the International Human Rights Committee and the Caucus on Refugees and Immigrants of the American Public Health Association.
Book Description
The presentation of Europe's immediate historical past has quite dramatically changed. Conventional depictions of occupation and collaboration in World War II, of wartime resistance and post-war renewal, provided the familiar backdrop against which the chronicle of post-war Europe has mostly been told. Within these often ritualistic presentations, it was possible to conceal the fact that not only were the majority of people in Hitler's Europe not resistance fighters but millions actively co-operated with and many millions more rather easily accommodated to Nazi rule. Moreover, after the war, those who judged former collaborators were sometimes themselves former collaborators. Many people became innocent victims of retribution, while others--among them notorious war criminals--escaped punishment. Nonetheless, the process of retribution was not useless but rather a historically unique effort to purify the continent of the many sins Europeans had committed. This book sheds light on the collective amnesia that overtook European governments and peoples regarding their own responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity--an amnesia that has only recently begun to dissipate as a result of often painful searching across the continent.
In inspiring essays, a group of internationally renowned scholars unravels the moral and political choices facing European governments in the war's aftermath: how to punish the guilty, how to decide who was guilty of what, how to convert often unspeakable and conflicted war experiences and memories into serviceable, even uplifting accounts of national history. In short, these scholars explore how the drama of the immediate past was (and was not) successfully "overcome." Through their comparative and transnational emphasis, they also illuminate the division between eastern and western Europe, locating its origins both in the war and in post-war domestic and international affairs. Here, as in their discussion of collaborators' trials, the authors lay bare the roots of the many unresolved and painful memories clouding present-day Europe.
Contributors are Brad Abrams, Martin Conway, Sarah Farmer, Luc Huyse, László Karsai, Mark Mazower, and Peter Romijn, as well as the editors. Taken separately, their essays are significant contributions to the contemporary history of several European countries. Taken together, they represent an original and pathbreaking account of a formative moment in the shaping of Europe at the dawn of a new millennium.
Customer Reviews:
Combines Facts and Gross Mischaracterizations.......2004-04-27
Mention of the killings of Jews in postwar Hungary (Judt, p. 321) needs further elaboration, as it refutes the common claim that this happened only in postwar Poland. The two articles by Jan Thomas Gross detract considerably from the remaining ones. The title of this review has an intentional double meaning, as Gross shows us the depths of convoluted reasoning that Polonophobes willingly go through to unfairly blame Poles for not aiding more Jews. More Poles are honored at Yad Vashem for saving Jews than any other nationality. Paulsson (SECRET CITY) has shown that, at least for Warsaw's Jews, the limiting factor in Jewish survival was the infrequency of Jews fleeing the ghettoes. It was NOT Polish "inaction". Nor was it the rate of Polish betrayal of fugitive Jews. Had more Jews sought Polish help, more Jews would have been saved.
Gross cites some indicators of the "diffuse hostility of Poles to Jews' and then, without any evidence, jumps to the conclusion that this made Poles disinclined to help Jews. In fact, the acknowledged anti-Semitic beliefs of many Polish rescuers of Jews argue for the opposite. The long history of considerable Jewish disloyalty to Poland, the most recent instance of which was the large-scale Jewish-Soviet collaboration against Poles (Gross' attempts to minimize it notwithstanding) was a major cause of Polish hostility to Jews.
Gross would have us believe that, since Poles already defied the German-imposed death penalty in numerous ways, they could just as easily have defied it by saving many more Jews--had they only wanted to. But his equating of various risky behaviors carrying the death penalty is transparently ridiculous, and he, being from Poland, should know better (unless, of course, he has discarded all semblance of objectivity). Gross disingenuously cites Polish incurrence of the death penalty through considerable "black marketeering". Common sense teaches that it is incomparably easier to hide contraband food than to hide (and feed) a living fugitive Jewish human being. The same holds for livestock slaughtered without German authorization, firearms, radios, and other verboten objects. Assuredly, the Germans directed far greater attention to fugitive Jews than to Polish "black marketers". Also, Gross overlooks the fact that German officials could often be bribed to spare from death a Pole who was caught "black marketeering", etc., but seldom for helping a Jew.
Gross also falsely conflates the risk of Polish participation in the Underground with that of hiding Jews. In actuality, successful participation in the Underground required one to live an inconspicuous double life that was in some ways the opposite of the overt risky behaviors necessary to save Jews. Numerous Polish guerillas nevertheless fell into German hands. Gross also exaggerates the significance of Poles covering up for each other. Contrary to Gross' selectively quoted anecdotes, membership in the Underground was a closely-guarded secret. Even close neighbors often had no inkling of each other's involvement in the Underground until they both came out in open warfare during Operation Burza (Tempest) during the closing months of the German occupation.
Despite significant efforts by the Underground to hide them, some 50% of all educated Poles were found and murdered by the Germans. Hiding a fugitive Jew from the Germans was far harder than hiding a fugitive Pole, as most Polish Jews had easily recognizable characteristics, and didn't blend readily into Polish society. Gross also ignores the fact that all Polish Underground activity was carefully weighed for maximum military benefit for the cost in terms of German reprisals. More extensive assistance to Jews would have triggered commensurate German action against Poles, and excessive incitement of German terror, resulting from any Underground action(s), would have discredited the Underground in the eyes of the Polish population.
Gross engages in blatant circular reasoning when he (selectively) cites some Polish rescuers of Jews who claim not to have been intimidated by the death penalty in order to "prove" its unimportance in the rescue of Jews. That's like going to a convention of blue-car owners, and, examining the cars parked there, arguing that all US cars are blue. Most absurd of all is Gross' mention of the Warsaw Uprising as evidence of the irrelevance of the death penalty in informing Polish conduct. In actuality, the Uprising was planned to eject the Germans within a few days, with minimal casualties, just prior to the arrival of the Red Army. No one could have foreseen the Soviet betrayal and ensuing 63-day agony, the deaths by combat and murder of a quarter million Poles, and subsequent destruction of Warsaw by vindictive Germans.
Gross takes a cheap shot at Polish heroism by falsely asserting that the absence of a collaborationist government in Poland was only due to Germans unwillingness. In actuality, Prince Janusz Radziwill and several other semi-prominent Poles were approached by the Germans as prospective Quislings for a (...) Polish puppet state, but they all refused (Lukas. 1986. THE FORGOTTEN HOLOCAUST, pp. 111-113). (Nor is it correct that Poles eschewed organized collaboration because of the brutality of German conduct against them. Other Slavic untermenschen were treated little better, yet some of them formed organized collaborationist units).
Ironically and unwittingly, Gross undermines two canons of conventional Holocaust thinking: The one that belittles Polish suffering (e. g. "collateral damage"), and the one that insinuates that Poles implicitly led quasi-normal lives ("spectators" of the Jewish catastrophe). According to Gross, Poles could never have survived on the meager food rations allowed by the Germans (pp. 118-119; whence the Polish "black marketeering"). Moreover, German killing of Poles was so indiscriminate and widespread that Poles obedient to German dictates were little safer than violators. Sounds like Polish and Jewish victimization, on a per capita basis, was much less different than commonly portrayed! In any case, how can Poles be blamed for not saving more Jews when Poles themselves faced a desperate shortage of food, and were otherwise necessarily preoccupied with their OWN physical survival under the German occupation?
Intriguing Exploration Of European Retribution After WW II!.......2002-10-16
It's an old and acknowledged saw that "to the victors go the spoils". What should be added to this splendidly commonplace bit of street lore is the similarly well-acknowledged fact that it is indeed the victors who get to write and thereby promulgate the official version of history, interpreting it to their advantage, giving it such spin, direction, and body language as needed to serve the perceived needs and political purposes of the present. In this sense the historical treatment of the past, especially the recent past, tells us volumes about what forces exist to warp into particular forms and modes today. This is especially true in this absorbing and well-edited series of essays by a number of noted historians and critics relating to the subject of the relative merits of the retribution process in Europe following the conclusion of the Second World War.
As is likely true for all conflicts, the punishment delivered in the aftermath of the war was by no means fair, equitable, or necessarily deserved by those it was haphazardly visited upon, and some who deserved to be punished walked away unblemished, while others who did nothing wrong were falsely accused and punished. Indeed, one of the consistent themes in these essays is the degree to which the captive people of Europe engaged in what has to be recognized as being a widespread accommodation and cooperation with the Nazi authorities and their lackeys. Yet although their were obvious many who escaped getting their just desserts, and many more who were unfairly castigated and punished, by and large the effort at social retribution after the war appears to have served a wider and more useful role in expiating the collective guilt and anxiety that literally permeated the continent in the wake of the war's end.
This is a fine collection of essays that seek to address the complex welter of needs, drives, and issues that had to be settled in the postwar period, and among the competing strands of thoughts and arguments one finds that the historical interpretation of the past was indeed manipulated and bastardized, often at the expense of specific groups and individuals, who had to suffer the continuing social indifference to the injuries they had suffered, or worse, the accusation and punishment for deeds they either did not commit, or that they had committed in such a strange and sordid set of constraining circumstances that to make an issue our of it was existentially absurd. It is in this sense that a kind of selective amnesia overtook many of the survivors, such that they repressed the ugly truth in favor of more palatable and pleasing fictions.
Of course, many of the issues discussed here are neither fully resolved nor completely played out. Just as many of the events of the war itself found their genesis in attitudes and cultural predispositions formed long before the war, so too, do many of the issues and dilemmas of the present find their antecedents in facts and circumstances located in postwar activities, and these may never be resolved. Whether talking about ethnic differences within a specific country or cultural predispositions existing between reviving cultures, many of the complex issues and concerns threading through these essays may never be resolved. This is a fascinating and quite worthwhile book, and one I am sure you would benefit from. Enjoy!
Book Description
“My face is black is true but its not my fault but I love my name and my honest in dealing with my fellow man.”
~Callie House (1899)
In her groundbreaking new book, My Face Is Black Is True, historian Mary Frances Berry resurrects the forgotten life of Callie House (1861-1928), ex-slave, widowed Nashville washerwoman and mother of five who, seventy years before the civil rights movement, headed a demand for ex-slave reparations.
House was born into slavery in 1861 and sought African-American pensions based on those offered Union soldiers. In a brilliant and daring move, House targeted $68 million in taxes on seized rebel cotton (over $1.2 billion in 2005 dollars) and demanded it as repayment for centuries of unpaid labor.
Dr. Berry tells how the Justice Department, persuaded by the postmaster general, banned the activities of Callie House’s town organizers, violated her constitutional rights to assembly and to petition Congress, and falsely accused her of mail fraud; the federal officials had the post office open the mail of almost all African-Americans, denying delivery on the smallest pretext. Berry shows how African-American newspapers, most of which preached meekness toward whites, systematically ignored or derided Mrs. House’s movement, which was essentially a poor person’s movement. Despite being denied mail service and support from the African-American establishment of the day, Mrs. House’s Ex-Slave Association flourished until she was imprisoned by the Justice Department for violating the postal laws of the United States; suddenly deprived of her spirit, leadership and ferocity, the first national grassroots African-American movement fell apart.
Callie House, so long forgotten that her grave has been lost, emerges as a courageous pioneering activist, a forerunner of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. My Face Is Black Is True is a fascinating book of original scholarship that reclaims a magnificent heroine.
Customer Reviews:
The Brilliance of this Historiography.......2007-07-06
Berry's brilliance as a scholar is exhibited in this text. She not only introduces the heroine Callie House, as a significant revolutionary who served jailed time for her leadership in this reparations movement, Berry uses House's story as a foundation to report how former enslaved Africans were mistreated systematically. Through use of a plethora of the state of Tennessee records, scholarly materials and various other documents, Dr. Berry introduces the first reparations movement to the reader.
It was often painful to read how former enslaved persons were treated as freedpersons, since all 8 of my great-grandparents were born between the 1870s to 1890. Knowing that they were children when their parents were so sorely abused was a very vivid and poignant point.
Dr. Berry is to be commended for creating this historiography that not only revealed House's story, it showed how callous the federal government was toward Black people during Reconstruction, and that this callousness trickled to the vicissitudes of everyday life and toil, from healthcare, employment, shelter, and a quality of life that all people deserve to have. Five starts to the senior scholar! - Colita Nichols Fairfax
PRIDE.......2007-01-03
This book really gives one PRIDE in knowing that people exsisted like CALLI HOUSE. Whatever ones ethicity, this is a book which should be read by all and the educational system should make this be a requiremnet. The population must be told and ugly story of what SLAVERY was and still is in the HYPOCRITICAL united staes.
Good unknown history.......2007-01-03
As a historian and lover of obscure history in particular, I have to give Miss Berry (who I met in 1999 at a historian's conference in Toronto and found to be an excellent conversationalist) high marks for the untold story of Callie House.
Callie House tried to form an organization to encourage the government to grant living ex-slaves (this was in the early 20th century when many were still alive). She tried to do this with many strikes against her, facing racism, sexism, and classism (she did not have much formal education). Unfortuantely, government harrassment tried to destroy her movement.
As mentioned, little is documented about Miss House's personal life, but being a Tennesseean like Miss House, Miss Berry does a good job in using her knowledge of the area and historical documents to fill in the holes.
However, in the last chapter Miss Berry links Miss House's movement to the modern day reparations movement. One can argue that there is a considerable stretch between the noble effort of a woman to get deserved pensions for elderly ex-slaves and the modern snowball's chance in hell Quioxtic endeavor to get reperations for the descendants of long-dead slaves, but Miss Berry tries to put a good face on the modern movement. She notes the 2002 reparations march, forgetting to mention that it was very poorly attended and almost universally dismissed for its outlandish and crackpot speeches and states that the reparations movement is mostly supported by the poor black masses (I have to disagree- in my experience it has usually been supported by a segment of black nationalists with some high school or college education).
But that's another story, I'll admit. In either case, regardless of your opinions of the current debate, this is a VERY good and interesting read.
Another Racial Alibi Eliminated.......2006-05-19
Since the Civil Rights Movement it seems most "Whites" and amazingly even some "Blacks" have bought the argument that slavery and its legacy were so long ago that no living African-American could rightfully claim being a victim of it.
This book shows that argument as being just another shameless attempt to avoid owning up to our nation's original sin. The fact that "White" leaders right after the Civil War used other equally specious rationales to avoid paying the piper for their unconscionable crime is telling. Ms. Berry's book should definitely be taught in every school in our guilty nation. And broadcast on every so-called news show. I'll hold my breath until Hollywood decides to make the movie.
"My Face Is Black Is True" is a must-read for any American who considers themselves educated.
Should be required reading for American History classes.......2006-03-17
This wellwritten and extensively researched book reveals not only the drive and persistence of post-Civil War African Americans in seeking reparations for ex-slaves and war veterans, but what can be accomplished with little more than a basic ability to read and write and a talent for organizing and motivating one's colleagues. Callie House is truly an American heroine and her efforts to help black citizens obtain what they richly deserved from the U.S. government, despite obstacles which would have made a lesser person roll over, should be recognized and remembered.
Book Description
Over 90,000 Blacks die each year that would not die if Blacks had the same death rate as whites. Blacks still suffer from the generational effect of a slave health deficit. Blacks lag behind on nearly every health indicator, including life expectancy, death rates, infant mortality, low birth weight rates and disease rates. Blacks are sicker than Whites. Blacks have shorter lives - Blacks are quite literally dying from being black! This black health deficit is directly traceable to the slave health deficit. The slave health deficit that was established during slavery was not relieved during the reconstruction period (1865-1870), Jim Crow Era (1870-1965) , the Affirmative Action Era (1965-1980) or the Racial entrenchment era (1980 to present). Also, established at the time was a health care deficit that continues to exist. Repairing the health of Blacks will require a multi-facet long term legal and financial commitment. Dying While Black produces the "smoking gun" connection between white privilege, racism, slavery and Black health outcomes. DWB combines careful documentation of the past and a plethora of data with deft, compelling storytelling. The result is a nuanced, forward looking narrative that not only provides evidence of what's wrong and why, but offers a concrete proposal for what can be done to make a difference. Chapter 1, "Introduction", provides and overview to the problem to be addressed in this book. Chapter 2, "From Slave Health Deficit to Black Health Inequities", traces the health status deficit of Blacks from slavery through Jim Crow to the twenty-first century. Chapter 3, "Racist Health Care," addresses the racial inequity in the health care system This inequities exist in access to health care and the quality of treatment received. Racial inequity is manifested in racial barriers to hospitals, to nursing homes, and to physicians and other providers. Finally, shortage of Black health professionals affects both access to health care and input into the health care system Chapter 4, "Targeting the Black Community" addresses the targeting the Black community by the tobacco industry and the inadequacy of the national tobacco settlement. Chapter 5, "Impact of Managed Care on Blacks" addresses the rationing goal of managed health care organization and its impact on Blacks. Managed care organizations (MCOs) complicate the problem of racially disparate health care because they increase the incentives for providers and facilities to engage in discrimination. Chapter 6, "Slavery, Segregation and Racism: Trusting the Health Care System: It Ain't Always Easy to Trust the Health Care System, discusses the significant distrust towards the health care system in the Black community. This distrust is not just paranoia but is built on a history of abuses that includes experimentation, the Sickle Cell Screening Initiative, family planning/involuntary sterilization, and the complicity of the medical system in justifying racism and discrimination. Chapter 7, "Health Care in the U.S. as a Violation of International Human Rights" discusses how the combination of racial inequity in health status, institutional racism in health care and inadequate legal protection points to serious human rights violations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination "(CERD or Convention). Chapter 8, "Reparations: Repairing Black Health", discusses the legitimacy of the demand for reparations, but restructures the call from a compensation request to an equity request. The Slave Health deficit will be removed only if the United States makes the same a significant and sustained commitment that it made to landing on the moon. The burden of a slave health deficit has been a continuous burden and will only be relieved lifted with a well coordinated aggressive and comprehensive reparations and legal program.
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Paying for the Past: The Struggle over Reparations for Surviving Victims of the Nazi Terror
Christian Pross
Manufacturer: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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Book Description
"In countries just emerging from dictatorships, societies have been looking to history for models of reparations and justice for the victims. German reparations for the victims of Nazism represents both a model and a warning." -- from the Preface
In the aftermath of World War II, a defeated Nazi Germany hoped to ignore concentration camp survivors. But the Western Allies, the newly established Israeli government, and the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany defended the rights of Jews who had survived the Holocaust and of the relatives of those who had been murdered. International treaties enacted by these groups forced the Federal Republic of Germany to financially compensate the victims for stolen property as well as for damage to physical and mental health and livelihood.
In Paying for the Past, physician and historian Christian Pross untangles the complicated history of reparations in West Germany, from the American military government's 1947 Law Number 59 (Restitution of Property Stolen in the Course of the "Aryanization of the Economy") to West Germany's Federal Restitution Law of 1957 and into the 1970s. When first published in German in 1988, Pross's landmark research caused a furor because it exposed the hostility of the West German people and the bitter political opposition within the government toward reparations legislation and the Holocaust victims seeking restitution. One of Pross's most disturbing discoveries was that victims were frequently retraumatized by the reparations process itself. Some were forced to undergo medical and psychological examination by dozens of physicians in order to substantiate their claims of abuse. Many more had claims still pending after twenty years of waiting.
Paying for the Past uncovers the inconsistencies, distortions, superficialities, and veiled anti-Semitic attitudes of West Germany's official version of its reparations history. Pross brings to light the government's continuous resistance to reparations and allows those who challenged this official reluctance to finally speak. Through victims' statements and numerous eyewitness accounts, the book also unblinkingly documents the crimes for which victims demanded restitution. Finally available in English, this edition of Paying for the Past contains a new preface by the author and an afterword by medical ethicist Erich Loewy which places the ethical issues raised by the West German experiences with reparations into an international context.
Book Description
In a world riven by conflict, reconciliation is not always possible -- but it offers one of the few paths to peace for a troubled nation or a troubled soul. In Bone to Pick, bestselling author and Newsweek editor Ellis Cose offers a provocative and wide-ranging discussion of the power of reconciliation, the efficacy of revenge, and the possibility of forgiveness.
People increasingly are searching for ways to put the demons of the past to rest. That search has led parents to seek out the murderers of their children and torture victims to confront their former tormentors. In a narrative drawing on the personal and dramatic stories of people from Texas to East Timor, Cose explores the limits and the promise of those encounters.
Bone to Pick is not only the story of victims who have found peace through confronting the source of their pain; it is also a profound meditation on how the past shapes the present, and how history's wounds, left unattended, can fester for generations. Time does not heal all, Cose points out. Memories and anger can linger long beyond a human lifespan. The descendants of Holocaust survivors and African slaves alike feel the effects of their forebears' pain -- and in some cases are still demanding restitution.
What is behind the movement for reparations? Why are truth-and-reconciliation commissions sprouting all over the world? Why are old wars being refought and old wounds being reopened? In Bone to Pick, Ellis Cose provides a moving and nuanced guide to such questions as he points the way toward a more harmonious world.
Download Description
"In a world riven by conflict, reconciliation is not always possible -- but it offers one of the few paths to peace for a troubled nation or a troubled soul. In Bone to Pick, bestselling author and Newsweek editor Ellis Cose offers a provocative and wide-ranging discussion of the power of reconciliation, the efficacy of revenge, and the possibility of forgiveness. People increasingly are searching for ways to put the demons of the past to rest. That search has led parents to seek out the murderers of their children and torture victims to confront their former tormentors. In a narrative drawing on the personal and dramatic stories of people from Texas to East Timor, Cose explores the limits and the promise of those encounters. Bone to Pick is not only the story of victims who have found peace through confronting the source of their pain; it is also a profound meditation on how the past shapes the present, and how history's wounds, left unattended, can fester for generations. Time does not heal all, Cose points out. Memories and anger can linger long beyond a human lifespan. The descendants of Holocaust survivors and African slaves alike feel the effects of their forebears' pain -- and in some cases are still demanding restitution. What is behind the movement for reparations? Why are truth-and-reconciliation commissions sprouting all over the world? Why are old wars being refought and old wounds being reopened? In Bone to Pick, Ellis Cose provides a moving and nuanced guide to such questions as he points the way toward a more harmonious world. "
Customer Reviews:
Or Can We All Live in a Semblance of Peace?.......2005-04-19
Mr. Cose is an editor of 'Newsweek' magazines and has written six other books. The Ford Foundation grant allowed him to travel to South Africa, Ghana, Peru, New Zealand, and othe places. He touches on slavery (how the past shapes the present) and KKK (the challenges of life). He wants justice, revenge, mediation, retribution for the crimes against victims of various wars and races.
We have all been unjustly harmed to some extent, and somehow we managed to deal with it. Yet to deal with pain or trauma is not the same as being free of it. He seeks repentance, negotiations, reparations (money) for unspeakable truths and harm. Forgetting is not an option as the hurt festers and must be addressed at the appropriate time to rectify the wrongs of the past.
Memories of the 'wrong' linger and must be dealt with in some fashion. Recognition of the wrongdoing is essential for reconciliation and forgiveness. You can choose to forgive, enjoy a sweet revenge, let go of resentments, or you can demand restitution for physical and emotional damages.
He gives his take on the surrender of Saddam Hussein. Ultimately, it comes down to t he human need for hope, the consequent capacity for faith, and demand for the ultimate punishment. Else society would be sanctioning wrongdoing.
He has appeared on 'Nightline, 'Dateline,' NPR, PBS News Hour, and ABC 'Good Morning America.'
Book Description
Moral Repair examines the ethics and moral psychology of responses to wrongdoing. Explaining the emotional bonds and normative expectations that keep human beings responsive to moral standards and responsible to each other, Margaret Urban Walker uses realistic examples of both personal betrayal and political violence to analyze how moral bonds are damaged by serious wrongs and what must be done to repair the damage. Focusing on victims of wrong, their right to validation, and their sense of justice, Walker presents a unified and detailed philosophical account of hope, trust, resentment, forgiveness, and making amends - the emotions and practices that sustain moral relations. Moral Repair joins a multidisciplinary literature concerned with transitional and restorative justice, reparations, and restoring individual dignity and mutual trust in the wake of serious wrongs.
Book Description
Violence so often begets violence. Victims respond with revenge only to inspire seemingly endless cycles of retaliation. Conflicts between nations, between ethnic groups, between strangers, and between family members differ in so many ways and yet often share this dynamic. In this powerful and timely book Martha Minow and others ask: What explains these cycles and what can break them? What lessons can we draw from one form of violence that might be relevant to other forms? Can legal responses to violence provide accountability but avoid escalating vengeance? If so, what kinds of legal institutions and practices can make a difference? What kinds risk failure?
Breaking the Cycles of Hatred represents a unique blend of political and legal theory, one that focuses on the double-edged role of memory in fueling cycles of hatred and maintaining justice and personal integrity. Its centerpiece comprises three penetrating essays by Minow. She argues that innovative legal institutions and practices, such as truth commissions and civil damage actions against groups that sponsor hate, often work better than more conventional criminal proceedings and sanctions. Minow also calls for more sustained attention to the underlying dynamics of violence, the connections between intergroup and intrafamily violence, and the wide range of possible responses to violence beyond criminalization.
A vibrant set of freestanding responses from experts in political theory, psychology, history, and law examines past and potential avenues for breaking cycles of violence and for deepening our capacity to avoid becoming what we hate. The topics include hate crimes and hate-crimes legislation, child sexual abuse and the statute of limitations, and the American kidnapping and internment of Japanese Latin Americans during World War II. Commissioned by Nancy Rosenblum, the essays are by Ross E. Cheit, Marc Galanter, Fredrick C. Harris, Judith Lewis Herman, Carey Jaros, Frederick M. Lawrence, Austin Sarat, Ayelet Shachar, Eric K. Yamamoto, and Iris Marion Young.
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- First Aid for the USMLE Step 1: 2007 (First Aid for the Usmle Step 1)
- First Amendment Law (University Casebook Series)
- Global Marketing (4th Edition) (Pie)
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Weekend Warriors
- The Paper Bag Princess
- Molecular Collision Theory
- Sarah's Song
- Plane Image: A Brice Marden Retrospective
- System-on-a-Chip Verification - Methodology and Techniques
- Sexuality and Disabilities: A Guide for Human Service Practitioners
- Blind Spots: Critical Theory and the History of Art in Twentieth-Century Germany
- Mermaids: Sirens of the Sea
- Native Orchids of the Eastern Caribbean
The Little Book of Restorative Justice (Little Books of Justice & Peacebuilding Series) (The Little Books of Justice & Peacebuilding)
Changing Lenses: A New Focus for Crime and Justice (Christian Peace Shelf)
Restorative Justice: Ideas, Practices, Debates
The Little Book of Restorative Discipline for Schools: Teaching Responsibility; Creating Caring Climates (The Little Books of Justice and Peacebuilding ... Little Books of Justice and Peacebuilding)
The Little Book of Circle Processes : A New/Old Approach to Peacemaking (The Little Books of Justice and Peacebuilding Series)
