The New Killing Fields (Hardcover)

by Kira Brunner (Author), Nicolaus Mills (Author) "In the midst of his speech at the 1993 dedication of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel..." (more)
Key Phrases: new killing fields, genocide prevention, intervening forces, East Timor, United States, Khmer Rouge (more...)

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.

Product Description
A prize-winning group of war reporters and analysts looks back on the killing fields of the late twentieth century and poses provocative questions for the future of human rights.

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.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (September 17, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465008038
• ISBN-13: 978-0465008032
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,643,134 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

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

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

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.

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 (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

"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.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful and incredibly sad, May 31, 2007

By	mystery maven (London, UK) - See all my reviews

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

This is must-read. It is horrific in details but very, very important.