Keepers of the Flame: Understanding Amnesty International [Paperback]

Stephen Hopgood (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 16, 2006

"If one organization is synonymous with keeping hope alive, even as a faint glimmer in the darkness of a prison, it is Amnesty International. Amnesty has been the light, and that light was truth-bearing witness to suffering hidden from the eyes of the world."-from the PrefaceThe first in-depth look at working life inside a major human rights organization, Keepers of the Flame charts the history of Amnesty International and the development of its nerve center, the International Secretariat, over forty-five years. Through interviews with staff members, archival research, and unprecedented access to Amnesty International's internal meetings, Stephen Hopgood provides an engrossing and enlightening account of day-to-day operations within the organization, larger decisions about the nature of its mission, and struggles over the implementation of that mission.An enduring feature of Amnesty's inner life, Hopgood finds, has been a recurrent struggle between the "keepers of the flame" who seek to preserve Amnesty's accumulated store of moral authority and reformers who hope to change, modernize, and use that moral authority in ways that its protectors fear may erode the organization's uniqueness. He also explores how this concept of moral authority affects the working lives of the servants of such an ideal and the ways in which it can undermine an institution's political authority over time. Hopgood argues that human-rights activism is a social practice best understood as a secular religion where internal conflict between sacred and profane-the mission and the practicalities of everyday operations-are both unavoidable and necessary. Keepers of the Flame is vital reading for anyone interested in Amnesty International, its accomplishments, agonies, obligations, fears, opportunities, and challenges-or, more broadly, in how humanitarian organizations accommodate the moral passions that energize volunteers and professional staff alike.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Hopgood spent a year in Amnesty's International London headquarters, the International Secretariat, interviewing staff and researching the inevitable bureaucratic and philosophical challenges facing the well-known humanitarian organization. This is an interesting, ambitious, and lucid critique of the International Secretariat. . . . Recommended."-Choice, December 2006

"This is a remarkable book. A fascinating and sensitive account of Amnesty International's organizational development, it is also a penetrating reflection on the practice and practices of moral and political authority, of the 'commodification of moral concern under globalization,' and of the possibility of universal values. How can AI govern itself, and on what basis does it make choices about its campaigns? How distant is the initial focus on Prisoners of Conscience from the statement that Guantanamo would be the gulag of our time? Throughout the narrative, Stephen Hopgood never lets the reader off the hook, presenting to us the strongest possible arguments for all sides of impossible choices so that by the book's end we are with him in trying to think through our own morality in the face of the quandaries he has opened up for us."-Margaret Keck, The Johns Hopkins University

"Stephen Hopgood emerged from a year doing field research at the International Secretariat of Amnesty International with an incredibly insightful, complex, and fascinating interpretation of the organization. There are points of pure brilliance and sparkling insights, especially when he discusses how the tensions between the sacred and profane, moral and political authority, play themselves out in a changing environment."-Michael Barnett, Harold Stassen Chair at the Hubert H. Humphrey School and Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota

About the Author

Stephen Hopgood is a Lecturer in International Politics, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He is the author of American Foreign Environmental Policy and the Power of the State. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Cornell University Press; annotated edition edition (March 16, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801472512
• ISBN-13: 978-0801472510
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #724,404 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Most complete book on AI, November 4, 2009

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This review is from: Keepers of the Flame: Understanding Amnesty International (Paperback)

This is really the only book out there that explains Amnesty International in a complete and unbiased way. The author was allowed unprecedented access to the archives and inner-workings of AI which provided him with all kinds of interesting and unexpected information. The author was very clear about his personal opinions on the group and how they changed throughout his experience of writing this book. It was perfect for a research paper- it's carefully cited and doesn't have the agenda that most of the books published on AI clearly contain. It is very difficult to find accurate information on AI since they seem to evoke such strong opinions, both for and against them. This book also does a good job of explaining several of their major campaigns in detail.