Human Rights and Wrongs: Slavery, Terror, Genocide / Edition 1

by Helen Fein

Overview

Human Rights and Wrongs explains the persistence of crimes against humanity since the Holocaust-including slavery, terror, and genocide. Using extended country descriptions and analyses, the book goes beyond case studies to explain such gross human rights violations in terms of an integrated theory of life integrity, giving readers vivid illustrations in addition to a theoretical framework. Distinguished author Helen Fein then asks how we can arrest human wrongs and discusses whether democracy is the answer. She shows the positive links among human rights, freedom, and development and draws out policy recommendations from her findings.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781594513275
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	07/20/2008
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

List of Acronyms, Preface and Acknowledgments, 1 Distinguishing among Human Rights and Wrongs, 2 Twentieth-Century Slavery within the State, 3 Slavery, Trafficking, and Globalization, 4 States of Terror in the Late Twentieth Century: Algeria and Argentina, 5 States of Terror Turn to Genocide: Guatemala and Iraq, 6 States of Genocide, Genocidal Massacres, and Ethnic Cleansing, 7 No Brave New World: Democracy and Human Rights, 8 Human Rights, Freedom, and Development, 9 Conclusion and Implications: What Can Be Done?, Bibliography, Index, About the Author

Editorial Reviews

Helen Fein has long been one of the world’s leading experts on genocide and state-sponsored massacres. In her superb new book she returns to that subject but also delves into other atrocities—terror, torture, and slavery—that have been perpetrated by states and by non-state actors alike. The subject is unremittingly grim, but her eloquent discussion and shrewd insights help readers to understand why these appalling forms of human cruelty have occurred so frequently and why bringing an end to them has been so difficult.

Mark Kramer

Human Rights and Wrongs is a magnificent book: lucid, insightful, nuanced, and encompassing. I know of no other work that deals with all of the major threats to human rights: slavery, terror, and genocide. Moreover, its discussion of the place of democracy in fostering and preserving human rights is original, chastening, yet encouraging. Fein’s book will be a classic in social science, standing in the company of Barrington Moore’s Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy and Robert Putnam’s Making Democracy Work.

Roger W. Smith

Filled with original insight and analysis . . . I find particularly invaluable the author's linking of genocide, slavery, and terror. Helen Fein is a foundational figure in genocide studies and her comparative, interdisciplinary frameworks are unique and thought-provoking.

Joyce A. Apsel

Human Rights and Wrongs is a magnificent book: lucid, insightful, nuanced, and encompassing. I know of no other work that deals with all of the major threats to human rights: slavery, terror, and genocide. Moreover, its discussion of the place of democracy in fostering and preserving human rights is original, chastening, yet encouraging. Fein’s book will be a classic in social science, standing in the company of Barrington Moore’s Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy and Robert Putnam’s Making Democracy Work.”
—Roger W. Smith, College of William and Mary, and past president, International Association of Genocide scholars.

“Helen Fein has long been one of the world’s leading experts on genocide and state-sponsored massacres. In her superb new book she returns to that subject but also delves into other atrocities—terror, torture, and slavery—that have been perpetrated by states and by non-state actors alike. The subject is unremittingly grim, but her eloquent discussion and shrewd insights help readers to understand why these appalling forms of human cruelty have occurred so frequently and why bringing an end to them has been so difficult.”
—Mark Kramer, Director of Cold War Studies, Harvard University

From the Publisher