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In Dark Pasts, Jennifer M. Dixon asks why states deny past atrocities, and when and why they change the stories they tell about them. In recent decades, states have been called on to acknowledge and apologize for historic wrongs. Some have apologized, while others have silenced, denied, and relativized past crimes. Dark Pasts unravels the complex and fraught processes through which state narratives of past atrocities are constructed, contested, and defended. Focusing on Turkey's narrative of the Armenian Genocide and Japan's narrative of the Nanjing Massacre, Dixon shows that international pressures increase the likelihood of change in states' narratives of their own dark pasts, even as domestic considerations determine their content. Combining historical richness and analytical rigor, Dark Pasts is a revelatory study of the persistent presence of the past and the politics that shape narratives of state wrongdoing.
Introduces an interpretation-contestation framework for comprehending the emergence, transformation, and legitimacy of international norms.
In recent years the agenda of how to ‘deal with the past’ has become a central dimension of the quality of contemporary democracies. Many years after the process of authoritarian breakdown, consolidated democracies revisit the past either symbolically or to punish the elites associated with the previous authoritarian regimes. New factors, like international environment, conditionality, party cleavages, memory cycles and commemorations or politics of apologies, do sometimes bring the past back into the political arena. This book addresses such themes by dealing with two dimensions of authoritarian legacies in Southern European democracies: repressive institutions and human rights abuses. The thrust of this book is that we should view transitional justice as part of a broader ‘politics of the past’: an ongoing process in which elites and society under democratic rule revise the meaning of the past in terms of what they hope to achieve in the present. This book was published as a special issue of South European Society and Politics.
Beloved writer Alfred Gibson's funeral is taking place at Westminster Abbey, and Dorothea, his wife of twenty years has not been invited. Gibson's will favours his many children and secret mistress over Dorothea - who was sent away from the family home when their youngest was still an infant. Dorothea has not left her apartment in years, but when she receives a surprise invitation to a private audience with Queen Victoria, she is shocked to find she has much in common with Her Highness. With renewed confidence Dorothea is spurred to examine her past and confront not only her family but the pretty young actress Miss Ricketts.
A treat for fans of Masterpiece Mystery and Downton Abbey, Colleen Cambridge’s charming and inventive new historical series introduces an unforgettable heroine in Phyllida Bright, fictional housekeeper for none other than famed mystery novelist Agatha Christie. Hijinks—and murder—ensue. Tucked away among Devon’s rolling green hills, Mallowan Hall combines the best of English tradition with the modern conveniences of 1930. Housekeeper Phyllida Bright manages the large household with an iron fist in her very elegant glove. In one respect, however, Mallowan Hall stands far apart from other picturesque country houses. For the manor is home to archaeologist Max Mallowan and his famous wif...
A rare and poignant testimony of a survivor of the Armenian genocide. The twentieth century was an era of genocide, which started with the Turkish destruction of more than one million Armenian men, women, and children—a modern process of total, violent erasure that began in 1895 and exploded under the cover of the First World War. John Minassian lived through this as a young man, witnessing the murder of his kin, concealing his identity as an orphan and laborer in Syria, and eventually immigrating to the United States to start his life anew. A rare testimony of a survivor of the Armenian genocide, one of just a handful of accounts in English, Minassian’s memoir is breathtaking in its vivid portraits of Armenian life and culture and poignant in its sensitive recollections of the many people who harmed and helped him. As well as a searing testimony, his memoir documents the wartime policies and behavior of Ottoman officials and their collaborators; the roles played by foreign armies and American missionaries; and the ultimate collapse of the empire. The author’s journey, and his powerful story of perseverance, despair, and survival, will resonate with readers today.
This book examines crucial facets of the Russian invasion: among them, the Russian sexual violence against occupied Ukrainians, their “collaboration” and “filtration,” legal prosecutions especially relating to kidnapped Ukrainian children, the portrayal of events in Bucha on Russian social media, and the lessons learned from the Ukrainian refugee crisis in Poland during the initial weeks of the war, as well the potential pursuit of justice at the International Court of Justice, and the genocide claim more generally. This anthology will serve as a valuable resource for scholars, policymakers, and the broader community involved in the study of genocide and conflict. It endeavours to offer not only insights into the immediate circumstances of the invasion but also a framework for broader discussions and a foundation for informed dialogues on the multifaceted dimensions of this geopolitical upheaval. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Journal of Genocide Research.
How does international law change? How does it adapt to meet global challenges in a volatile social and political context? The Many Paths of Change in International Law offers fresh, theoretically informed, and empirically rich answers to these questions. It traces drivers, conditions, and consequences of change across the different fields of international law and paints a complex and varied picture very much in contrast with the relatively static imagery prevalent in many accounts today. Drawing on inspirations from international law, international relations, sociology, and legal theory, this book explores how international law changes through means other than treaty-making. Highlighting th...
Environmental disasters. Terrorist wars. Energy scarcity. Economic failure. Is this the world's inevitable fate, a downward spiral that ultimately spells the collapse of societies? Perhaps, says acclaimed author Thomas Homer-Dixon - or perhaps these crises can actually lead to renewal for ourselves and planet earth. The Upside of Down takes the reader on a mind-stretching tour of societies' management, or mismanagement, of disasters over time. From the demise of ancient Rome to contemporary climate change, this spellbinding book analyzes what happens when multiple crises compound to cause what the author calls "synchronous failure." But, crisis doesn't have to mean total global calamity. Thr...