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Since the early 1990s, Michael Ignatieff has traveled the world's war zones, from Bosnia to the West Bank, from Afghanistan to central Africa. The Warrior's Honor is a report and a reflection on what he has seen in the places where ethnic war has become a way of life. Ignatieff charts the rise of the new moral interventionists--the relief workers, reporters, delegates, and diplomats who believe that other people's misery is of concern to us all. And he brings us face-to-face with the new...

What does forgiveness mean when it appears in politics, and what is its relationship to other ideas in political philosophy? In Political Forgiveness, P. E. Digeser defends a conception of forgiveness against those who are skeptical of its desirability as a political idea. While much of the previous work on forgiveness reflects theological or psychological perspectives, Digeser offers a concept of political forgiveness that is secular and public rather than religious or personal. It centers...

Few thinkers have addressed the political horrors and ethical complexities of the twentieth century with the insight and passionate intellectual integrity of Hannah Arendt. She was irresistible drawn to the activity of understanding, in an effort to endow historic, political, and cultural events with meaning. Essays in Understanding assembles many of Arendt’s writings from the 1930s, 1940s, and into the 1950s. Included here are illuminating discussions of St. Augustine, existentialism,...

Taking stock of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the collapse of the communist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe, this volume explores the ways these societies have grappled with the serious human rights violations of past regimes. It focuses on the most important factors that have shaped the nature, speed, and sequence of transitional justice programs in the period spanning the tumultuous revolutions that brought about the collapse of the communist dictatorships and the consolidation of...

In recent years, no modern democracy has taken more aggressive steps to come to terms with a legacy of dictatorship than has the Federal Republic of Germany with the crimes and injustices of Communist East Germany. In this book, A. James McAdams provides a comprehensive and engaging examination of the four most prominent instances of this policy: criminal trials for the killings at the Berlin Wall; the disqualification of administrative personnel for secret-police ties; parliamentary...

Against the backdrop of one of the great transformations of our century, the sudden and unexpected fall of communism as a ruling system, Charles Maier recounts the history and demise of East Germany. Dissolution is his poignant, analytically provocative account of the decline and fall of the late German Democratic Republic. This book explains the powerful causes for the disintegration of German communism as it constructs the complex history of the GDR. Maier looks at the turning points in...

Bis heute gilt die konsequente Verfolgung von NS-Ttern als "gute Seite" des Ministeriums f"r Staatssicherheit der DDR. Doch hinter der Fassade des antifaschistischen Musterstaats wurde ein sorgsam verh"lltes, doppeltes Spiel gespielt: SED und Staatssicherheit prangerten die Bundesrepublik an und lieferten Flle f"r Vorzeigeprozesse, aber zugleich stellten sie Ermittlungen gegen NS-Tter hintan, wenn sie dem Image der DDR zuwiderliefen. Henry Leide analysiert systematisch die Formen dieser...

Grounded in historical and social theory, this analysis of the power of archives and the role of archivists in society calls for renewed emphasis on remembrance, evidence, and documentation as a means of securing open government, accountability, diversity, and social justice, within an archival ethics of professional and societal responsibility.

A well-balanced and detailed look at the East German Ministry for State Security, the secret police force more commonly known as the Stasi. “This is an excellent book, full of careful, balanced judgements and a wealth of concisely-communicated knowledge. It is also well written. Indeed, it is the best book yet published on the MfS.”―German History The Stasi stood for Stalinist oppression and all-encompassing surveillance. The “shield and sword of the party,” it secured the rule of the...

How do societies transitioning from oppressive to democratic rule hold accountable those citizens who contributed to maintaining injustice in the ancient regime by secretly denouncing fellow citizens? Is their public identification a way of fulfilling respect for those who suffered harm as a result of their collaboration? And is public identification respectful of denunciators themselves? This book pursues these questions through a multidisciplinary investigation focusing on the denunciators...

National Book Award Finalist TIME Magazine's #1 Nonfiction Book of 2012A New York Times Notable BookA Washington Post Top Ten Book of 2012Best Nonfiction of 2012: The Wall Street Journal, The Plain Dealer In the much-anticipated follow-up to her Pulitzer Prize-winning Gulag, acclaimed journalist Anne Applebaum delivers a groundbreaking history of how Communism took over Eastern Europe after World War II and transformed in frightening fashion the individuals who came under its sway. Iron...

First Published in 2017. This book contains Deletant's research and view that an inescapable feature of life in Romania under Ceausescu was the ubiquity of the Securitate or the security police, known officially for much of the period as the Department of State Security of the Ministry of the Interior. He seeks to right the omission in Romanian literature, until now, of the mechanism of terror which Stalin used in Romania to enforce his will and about the organisation of the Department of State Security.

Yamazaki, J. (2005). Japanese Apologies for World War II: A Rhetorical Study: A Rhetorical Study. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203002056

Post-war Japan offers a compelling case study of national apologies for past wrongdoings. Actions of the Japanese Army and government during the Second World War caused enormous suffering and distress throughout Asia, leaving a legacy of resentment and distrust. Beginning in the mid-1980s, apology for wartime actions became a recurring issue for Japan. Repeated calls for apology from various quarters as well as repeated apologies by Japanese officials provide a rich source for the study of...

Seventy years have passed since the end of the Asia-Pacific War, yet Japan remains embroiled in controversy with its neighbors over the war’s commemoration. Among the many points of contention between Japan, China, and South Korea are interpretations of the Tokyo War Crimes Trial, apologies and compensation for foreign victims of Japanese aggression, prime ministerial visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, and the war’s portrayal in textbooks. Collectively, these controversies have come to be called...

Governments increasingly offer or demand apologies for past human rights abuses, and it is widely believed that such expressions of contrition are necessary to promote reconciliation between former adversaries. The post-World War II experiences of Japan and Germany suggest that international apologies have powerful healing effects when they are offered, and poisonous effects when withheld. West Germany made extensive efforts to atone for wartime crimes-formal apologies, monuments to victims...

The Rape of Nanjing was one of the worst atrocities committed during World War II. On December 13, 1937, the Japanese army captured the city of Nanjing, then the capital of wartime China. According to the International Military Tribunal, during the ensuing massacre 20,000 Chinese men of military age were killed and approximately 20,000 cases of rape occurred; in all, the total number of people killed in and around the city of Nanjing was about 200,000. This carefully researched, intelligent...