The New Killing Fields: Massacre and the Politics of Intervention [Hardcover]

Kira Brunner (Author), Nicolaus Mills (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0465008038 | ISBN-13: 978-0465008032 | Publication Date: September 17, 2002 | Edition: 1St Edition

The New Killing Fields revisits Cambodia, Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and East Timor-sites of four of the worst instances of state-sponsored killing in the last half of the twentieth century-in order to reconsider the success and failure of U.S. and U.N. military and humanitarian intervention.Through original essays and reporting by, among others, David Rieff, Peter Maass, Philip Gourevitch, William Shawcross, George Packer, Bill Berkeley, and Samantha Power, The New Killing Fields reaches beyond headlines to ask vital questions about the future of peacekeeping in the next century. In addition, theoretical essays by Michael Walzer and Michael Ignatieff frame the issue of both past and future intervention in terms of today's post-Cold War reality. As human rights abuses increasingly occur in "failed states" such as Afghanistan, which pose international security threats, the future of human rights will not be, as it once was, considered solely a question of the beneficence and charity of the West. The prominent group of reporters and academics assembled here ponder these questions in light of their extensive experience, and reveal a fascinating set of conclusions, and further questions, about the future of human rights in the next century.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This compilation of 14 essays focuses on three of the world's bloodiest killing zones in the 1990s: Yugoslavia, Rwanda and East Timor. In a fascinating prefatory essay, editor Mills (The Triumph of Meanness: America's War Against Its Better Self) draws on such writers as Joseph Conrad and Primo Levi in tracing the evolution of the language of slaughter. Mills shows how writing about mass atrocities became more and more concrete, spare and factual as the scale of the killings increased over the last century. The writers examining Yugoslavia, Rwanda and East Timor share in that same literary tradition. Their essays are strong on factual presentation but restrained in moralizing. For each of the three killing zones under study, the editors include discussion of what has happened since the murders stopped. Of particular interest are the efforts in Rwanda and East Timor to create mechanisms for administering justice to those accused of crimes against humanity, generally modeled on South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The contributors to this volume-including Michael Walzer, William Shawcross and David Rieff-generally advocate intervention by the West whenever mass atrocities occur in places where Western pressure and even military action is possible (although the authors recognize that military force is not always the first or only resort). Given the frequency of anarchic mass slaughter in the 1990s, more such atrocities will likely occur in the decades ahead. Close observation and analysis of the kind demonstrated in this book will be essential to forming the nation's and the world's response.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Kira Brunner is an editor of Dissent , and Nicolaus Mills a professor of Ameri can studies at Sarah Lawrence College. They live i n New York City.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; 1St Edition edition (September 17, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465008038
• ISBN-13: 978-0465008032
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,765,202 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Essays on Genocide, December 18, 2002

By 

Brian D. Rubendall (Oakton, VA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The New Killing Fields: Massacre and the Politics of Intervention (Hardcover)

"The New Killing Fields" is not straight reporting, but rather a collection of essays by various writers concerning modern genocide, particularly in Yugoslavia, Rwanda and East Timor. The writers of the essays for the most part assume some level of knowledge about each war zone on the part of the reader, and the book is aimed more toward opinion leaders than the general public.

The essays themselves are an attempt by the various writers to help those of us in the West come to grips with the causes of genocide and our obligation to attempt to stop it. The argument is made that in Yugoslavia, for example, even the most minimal military intervention could have stopped the slaughter years earlier and that the Bosnian Serb forces in particular were nothing more than paper tigers. The "Powell Docterine" that has repeatedly led to a reluctance by the U.S. to use its military comes under particular criticism. The authors also tailor their remarks to the post-September 11th political realities.

Overall, a strong collectiion of political essays aimed at opinion leaders.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Issues of justice and responsibility, December 4, 2002

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The New Killing Fields: Massacre and the Politics of Intervention (Hardcover)

Essays written by eyewitnesses to foreign terror are packed into The New Killing Fields: Massacre and the Politics of Intervention, a powerful, revealing title, which considers massacre, and the politics involved in its intervention around the world. Lessons gained from Asian and European massacre experiences, issues of justice and responsibility, and those involved in military and social issues on all sides are revealed in a set of striking scholarly analyses.

4.0 out of 5 stars Genocide and the new age, July 10, 2007

By 

Kevin M Quigg (Gettysburg, Pennsylvania United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The New Killing Fields: Massacre and the Politics of Intervention (Paperback)

A book that sheds light on a ghastly topic like genocide. There is something for everyone in this book. It talks of the tragic killings in Cambodia, East Timor, the former Yugoslavia, and Rwanda. As with any book written by 14 different authors, some of the writers focus on the academic portion of genocide while the journalists detail the story of mass killings. However, some of these stories dealt with the same story from a slightly different perspective, so in the case of East Timor, there are three very similar stories. Some of the writers are better than others at expressing their opinion and so the reader might have to trudge across some not so interesting intrepretations.

Some of the suggestions the authors detail for stopping genocide risk the West and especially the United States into becoming trustees to a failed genocidal state. A modern day colony by another name. Others suggest on how to interpret whether state murder is genocide as "When I see it, I will know it". Clearly the authors had difficulty with this subject. As the world becomes smaller, nations will learn sooner the defects of fellow regimes.