A memoir of a political prisoner from Mexico's 'dirty war' of the 1970s, this book provides an inside story of guerrilla activities and a gripping tale of imprisonment and torture at the hands of the Mexican governemnt.

Performing Race and Torture on the Early Modern Stage provides the first sustained reading of Restoration plays through a performance theory lens. This approach shows that an analysis of the conjoined performances of torture and race not only reveals the early modern interest in the nature of racial identity, but also how race was initially coded in a paradoxical fashion as both essentially fixed and socially constructed. An examination of scenes of torture provides the most effective way to unearth these seemingly contradictory representations of race because depictions of torture often interrogate the incongruous desire to substitute the visible and manipulable materiality of the body for the more illusive performative nature of identity. In turn, Performing Race and Torture on the Early Modern Stage challenges the long-standing assumption that early modern conceptions of race were radically different in their fluidity from post-Enlightenment ones by demonstrating how many of the debates we continue to have about the nature of racial identity were engendered by these seventeenth-century performances.

First published in 1999, This book is a wide-ranging and authoritative review of the reception in England and other countries of Foxe's Acts and Monuments of the English Martyrs from the time of its original publication between 1563 and 1583, up to the nineteenth century. Essays by leading scholars deal with the development of the text, the illustrations and the uses to which the work was put by protagonists in subsequent religious controversies. This volume is derived from the second John Foxe Colloquium held at Jesus College, Oxford in 1997. It is one of a number of research publications designed to support the British Academy Project for the publication of a new edition of Foxe's hugely influential text.

'I beseech you to read this account' - Christopher Hitchens A magnificent, harrowing testimony to the voiceless victims of North Korea. Kang Chol-Hwan is the first survivor of a North Korean concentration camp to escape the 'hermit kingdom' and tell his story to the world. This memoir reveals the human suffering in his camp, with its forced labour, frequent public executions and near-starvation rations. Kang eventually escaped to South Korea via China to give testimony to the hardships and atrocities that constitute the lives of the thousands of people still detained in the gulags today. Part horror story, part historical document, part memoir, part political tract, this story of one young man's personal suffering finally gives eye-witness proof to this neglected chapter of modern history.

Czech Political Prisoners: Recovering Face is the story of men and women who survived Czechoslovakian concentration camps under the Communist regime. Men and women disappeared, were arrested, imprisoned, interrogated, tortured, put on trial, convicted, and sentenced to forced labor camps. In 1948 in Czechoslovakia, political others became political prisoners. New forms of political practices developed under the institution of the totalitarian Czechoslovakian communist state. This new regime of totalitarian political power produced culturally specific forms of organized political violence. Between 1948 and 1989 some citizens recognized by the state as political others were subjected to such ritualized political violence. The link between ritualized violence and state subjects' political passage laid the groundwork for the formation of new social identities. In the post-totalitarian state, the political other from the socialist era remains other through distinct desires and acts of coming to terms with the experience of organized violence. Like other members of the Czech and Slovak states, former prisoners are now facing the post-totalitarian remaking of life. In contrast to society at large, the political prisoners' recovery from the totalitarian past has proven that the ethics of political life-individual and communal coming to terms with the past-is closely related and crucial to their efforts toward reconciliation. Today, in the Czech Republic, as well as in other post-socialist countries, the desire to reconcile is not limited to survivors of camps, prisoners, and dissidents. People from the youngest generation are asking questions about crimes, punishment, and forgiveness related to the Communist regime in central and eastern Europe. The purpose of this story is to expose individual and communal experience, subjectivity, and consciousness hidden in the ruins of memory of Socialism in Czechoslovakia.

Even before its dissolution in 1991, the Soviet Union was engaged in an ambivalent struggle to come to terms with its violent and repressive history. Following the death of Stalin in 1953, entrenched officials attempted to distance themselves from the late dictator without questioning the underlying legitimacy of the Soviet system. At the same time, the Gulag victims to society opened questions about the nature, reality, and mentality of the system that remain contentious to this day. "The Gulag Survivor" is the first book to examine at length and in-depth the post-camp experience of Stalin's victims and their fate in post-Soviet Russia. As such, it is an essential companion to the classic work of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Based on extensive interviews, memoirs, official records, and recently opened archives, "The Gulag Survivor" describes what survivors experienced when they returned to society, how officials helped or hindered them, and how issues surrounding the existence of the returnees evolved from the fifties up to the present. Adler establishes the social and historical context of the first wave of returnees who were "liberated" into exile in Stalin's time. She reviews diverse aspects of return including camp culture, family reunion, and the psychological consequences of the Gulag. Adler then focuses on the enduring belief in the Communist Party among some survivors and the association between returnees and the growing dissident movement. She concludes by examining how issues surrounding the survivors reemerged in the eighties and nineties and the impact they had on the failing Soviet system. Written and researched while Russian archives were most available and while there were still survivors to tell their stories, "The Gulag Survivor" is a groundbreaking and essential work in modern Russian history. It will be read by historians, political scientists, Slavic scholars, and sociologists.

This book provides an important, original analysis of the Polish community in the United Kingdom, adding up to a provocative interpretation of the Pole's position in British society. The chapters add to our understanding of the significant Polish military effort alongside the Allies in defeating Nazi Germany, while the appalling price the Poles paid at the end of the war at the Yalta Conference is accentuated. This crass and wholly unjustified betrayal of the cause of a Free Poland by the Allies resulted directly in the formation of a large Polish community in Britain.

This edited collection is about the application of English grammar and specialises in 'functional' and'corpus' approaches, approaches which are increasingly recognised as providing significant insights into English language in action. It aims to stimulate interest and understanding of grammar as an applied tool not just for grammarians or language learners, but for all those interested in how language is organized to shape our view of events in the world. As the chapters in this book show, functional and corpus approaches allow us to make observations that would not be amenable through more traditional forms of grammatical analysis. They also illustrate how researchers can fruitfully bring together corpus and functional approaches to reveal how grammar and lexis create and transmit values, identities and ideologies. Research in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) has a long tradition of drawing on functional grammar but has only relatively recently begun to draw on corpus linguistics. As such, the book is unusual in presenting work on CDA which draws on corpus linguistics. But not only that, it is also unique in presenting work in CDA which brings together the methodologies of corpus linguistics and functional grammar, demonstrating their combined potential for illuminating ideological perspectives, particularly in media texts. Given this focus and given the increasing value of empirical data, the book will be of interest to those in a range of disciplines including the humanities and media and cultural studies. Chapters comprise both newly commissioned and previously published works that illustrate the two methodological approaches to grammatical analysis and how they can be applied to deepen our understanding of language.

Despite lacking any sort of military advantage over the regimes they have confronted, the Iranian people have never been dissuaded from rising against and challenging varying forms of injustice. Through the successful implementation of non-violent action Iranians have overcome the violence of successive governments by undermining their moral and political legitimacy. But more than a hundred years after the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, Iranians are still in search of a social covenant through which they can acquire and practice public freedom. The stakes are extremely high, if Iran fails to end its culture of violence as a state and society then it risks its future as a stable, democratic state. So how then can the Iranian people break the cycle of violent and oppressive regimes and start looking towards a non-violent and democratic future? There is no magic formula that will immediately end violence in Iran but this book argues that by shunning violence and showing a readiness to face down persecution that the Iranian people have a chance to secure their freedom.

Opening the newspapers in South America at the beginning of the 21st century can feel like being caught in static time: so many of the contemporary news stories point to the persistence of a past which is definitely not "over". The attempts to try Pinochet, the continuing searches for the disappeared, or a child of murdered parents' struggle to discover their real identity, the Truth Commission in Peru - across the continent, societies continue to come to terms with the past. This book provides an introduction to the complexity of ideas and approaches which have been brought to bear on memory and its importance for understanding social and political realities. Elizabeth Jelin draws on European and North American debates and theories to explore the ways in which conflicts over memory shape individual and collective identities, as well social and political cleavages. The book exposes the enduring consequences of repression and enriches our understanding of the conflicted and contingent nature of memory.

This book provides a sophisticated investigation into the experience of being exterminated, as felt by victims of the Holocaust, and compares and contrasts this analysis with the experiences of people who have been colonized or enslaved. Using numerous victim accounts and a wide range of primary sources, the book moves away from the 'continuity thesis', with its insistence on colonial intent as the reason for victimization in relation to other historical examples of mass political violence, to look at the victim experience on its own terms. By affording each constituent case study its own distinctive aspects, The Victims of Slavery, Colonization and the Holocaust allows for a more enriching comparison of victim experience to be made that respects each group of victims in their uniqueness. It is an important, innovative volume for all students of the Holocaust, genocide and the history of mass political violence.

Contents:
Contents
1. Introduction
2. Theories of State-Societal Relations 3. Soviet Collectivization
4. The Hungarian Uprising 5. Poland and Solidarity 6. Conclusion

Ethnic Cleansing in the Balkans looks at the phenomenon of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans over the last two hundred years. It argues that the events that occurred during this time can be demystified, that the South East of Europe was not destined to become violent and that constructions of the Balkans as endemically violent misses a important political point and historical point.
Carmichael provides an account of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans as a single historical phenomenon and brings together a vast array of primary and secondary sources to produce a concise and accessible argument. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of European studies, history and comparative politics.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203218337

This book, an outcome of an international conference entitled "State Organized Terror: The Case of Violent Internal Repression", addresses the antecedent structural factors conducive to state organized terror and provides insights into the political and social psychology of state terror.

A shocking depiction of one of the world's most ruthless regimes - and the story of one woman's fight to survive. I will never forget the camp. I cannot forget the eyes of the prisoners, expecting me to do something for them. They are innocent. I have to tell their story, to tell about the darkness they are in. It is so easy to suffocate us with the demons of powerlessness, shame, and guilt. But we aren't the ones who should feel ashamed. Born in China's north-western province, Sayragul Sauytbay trained as a doctor before being appointed a senior civil servant. But her life was upended when the Chinese authorities incarcerated her. Her crime: being Kazakh, one of China's ethnic minorities. The north-western province borders the largest number of foreign nations and is the point in China that is the closest to Europe. In recent years it has become home to over 1,200 penal camps - modern-day gulags that are estimated to house three million members of the Kazakh and Uyghur minorities. Imprisoned solely due to their ethnicity, inmates are subjected to relentless punishment and torture, including being beaten, raped, and used as subjects for medical experiments. The camps represent the greatest systematic incarceration of an entire people since the Third Reich. In prison, Sauytbay was put to work teaching Chinese language, culture, and politics, in the course of which she gained access to secret information that revealed Beijing's long-term plans to undermine not only its minorities, but democracies around the world. Upon her escape to Europe she was reunited with her family, but still lives under the constant threat of reprisal. This rare testimony from the biggest surveillance state in the world reveals not only the full, frightening scope of China's tyrannical ambitions, but also the resilience and courage of its author.

The war on terror has brought to light troubling actions by the United States government which many claim amount to torture. But as this book shows, state-sanctioned violence and degrading, cruel, and unusual punishments have a long and contentious history in the nation.

Organized around five broad thematic periods in American history--colonial America and the early republic; slavery and the frontier; imperialism, Jim Crow, and World Wars I and II; the Cold War, Vietnam, and police torture; and the war on terror--this annotated documentary history traces the low and high points of official attitudes toward state violence. Robert M. Pallitto provides a critical introduction, historical context, and brief commentary and then lets the documents speak for themselves. The result is a nearly 400-year history that traces the continuities and changes in debates over the meaning of torture and state violence in the U.S. and shows where state actions and policies have pushed and exceeded constitutional and international normative limits.

Rigorously researched--and sometimes chilling--this volume is the first comprehensive reference work on state violence and torture in the U.S.

Taking Lives is a pivotal effort to reconstruct the social and political contexts of twentieth century, state-inspired mass murder. Irving Louis Horowitz re-examines genocide from a new perspective -- viewing this issue as the defining element in the political sociology of our time. The fifth edition includes approximately 30 percent new materials with five new chapters. The work is divided into five parts: "Present as History Past as Prologue, " "Future as Memory, " "Toward A General Theory of State-Sponsored Crime, " "Studying Genocide." The new edition concludes with chapters reviewing the natural history of genocide studies from 1945 to the present, along with a candid self-appraisal of the author's work in this field over four decades.

Taking Lives asserts that genocide is not a sporadic or random event, nor is it necessarily linked to economic development or social progress. Genocide is a special sort of mass destruction conducted with the approval of the state apparatus. Life and death issues are uniquely fundamental, since they alone serve as a precondition for the examination of all other issues. Such concerns move us beyond abstract, formalist frameworks into new ways of viewing the social study of the human condition. Nearly all reviewers of earlier editions have recognized this. Taking Lives is a fundamental work for political scientists, sociologists, and all those concerned with the state's propensity toward evil.

The Kwangju Uprising that occurred in May 1980 is burned into the minds of South Koreans in much the same way that Tiananmen is burned into the minds of contemporary Chinese. As the world watched in horror following the assassination of President Park Chung Hee, student protesters were brutally suppressed by the military and police led by strongman Chun Doo Hwan. Kim Dae Jung, the current president of South Korea, was imprisoned and sentenced to death during this period.

This book recreates those earth-shaking events through eyewitness reports of leading Western correspondents on the scene as well as Korean participants and observers. Photographs, detailed street maps, and dramatic woodblock prints further illuminate the day-to-day drama to keep this atrocity alive in the conscience of the world.

At the end of World War II, a number of former American military pilots formed the "Flying Tiger Line, " which soon became the worlds leading airfreight company. Its motto of "Anything, anytime, anywhere" was especially applicable in its humanitarian projects. In 1975, the Flying Tigers took part in relief efforts for Cambodians surrounded by Khmer Rouge forces. The "Ricelift" exposed the Tiger pilots to enormous risk. Though they were technically "noncombatants, " all this really meant was that they couldn shoot back. This is the memoir of Larry Partridge who, in his plane, nicknamed "Nancy" after his wife, flew 52 missions into Phnom Penh, delivering rice and other supplies in hostile conditions. After the collapse of Saigon and the victory of the Khmer Rouge, the ricelifts ceased. This account, from a Tigers-eye view, includes both history and human drama in a remarkable but completely true story.

"Soldiers in a Storm: The Armed Forces in South Africa's Democratic Transition" is a study of the role of the military in the creation and development of South Africa's new post-apartheid system. Philip Frankel asserts that the armed forces played a far greater role in the end of apartheid than is currently acknowledged in the literature, and that the relatively peaceful negotiations that ended apartheid would not have been possible without the participation of the South African National Defense Force and two major liberation armies.Frankel also examines the topics of military disengagement, civilianization, post-authoritarian political behavior on the part of militaries, and the process of democratic consolidation. He also discusses how many of these themes have been explored in the context of Latin America, and he points out that this is the only book that places these themes within the context of South Africa. This is an important case study with universal implications.

"Is Apartheid Really Dead? Pan Africanist Working Class Cultural Critical Perspectives" is an engaging and incisive book that radically challenges the widespread view that post-apartheid society is a liberated society, specifically for the Black working class and rural peasant populations. Julian Kunnie's central contention in this book is that the post-apartheid government was the product of a serious compromise between the former ruling white-led Nationalist Party and the African National Congress, resulting in a continuation of the erstwhile system of monopoly capitalism and racial privilege, albeit revised by the presence of a burgeoning Black political and economic elite. The result of this historic compromise is the persistent subjugation and impoverishment of the Black working class by the designs of global capital as under apartheid, this time managed by a Black elite in collaboration with the powerful white capitalist establishment in South Africa."Is Apartheid Really Dead?" engages in a comprehensive analysis of the South African conflict and the negotiated settlement of apartheid rule, and explores solutions to the problematic of continued Black oppression and exploitation. Rooted in a Black Consciousness philosophical framework, unlike most other works on post-apartheid South Africa, this book provides a carefully delineated history of the South African struggle from the pre-colonial era through the present. What is additionally distinctive is the author's reference to and discussion of the Pan Africanist movement in the global struggle for Black liberation, highlighting the aftermath of the 1945 Pan African meeting in Manchester. The author analyzes the South African struggle within the context of Pan Africanism and the continent-wide movement to rid Africa of colonialism's legacy, highlighting the neo-colonial character of much of Africa's post-independence nations, arguing that South Africa has followed similar patterns.One of the attractive qualities of this book is that it discusses correctives to the perceived situation of neo-colonialism in South Africa, by delving into issues of gender oppression and the primacy of women's struggle, working class exploitation and Black worker mobilization, environmental despoliation and indigenous religio-cultural responses, and educational disenfranchisement and the need for radically new structures and policies in educational transformation. Ultimately, "Is Apartheid Really Dead?" postulates revolutionary change as a solution, undergirded with all of the aforementioned ingredients. While anticipating and articulating a revolutionary socialist vision for post-apartheid South Africa, this book is tempered by a realistic appraisal of the dynamics of the global economy and the legacy of colonial oppression and capitalism in South Africa.

The Kwangju Uprising that occurred in May 1980 is burned into the minds of South Koreans in much the same way that Tiananmen is burned into the minds of contemporary Chinese. As the world watched in horror following the assassination of President Park Chung Hee, student protesters were brutally suppressed by the military and police led by strongman Chun Doo Hwan. Kim Dae Jung, the current president of South Korea, was imprisoned and sentenced to death during this period.

This book recreates those earth-shaking events through eyewitness reports of leading Western correspondents on the scene as well as Korean participants and observers. Photographs, detailed street maps, and dramatic woodblock prints further illuminate the day-to-day drama to keep this atrocity alive in the conscience of the world.

This is the first historical survey of the Gulag based on newly accessible archival sources as well as memoirs and other studies published since the beginning of glasnost.

Over the course of several decades, the Soviet labor camp system drew into its orbit tens of millions of people -- political prisoners and their families, common criminals, prisoners of war, internal exiles, local officials, and prison camp personnel. This study sheds new light on the operation of the camp system, both internally and as an integral part of a totalitarian regime that "institutionalized violence as a universal means of attaining its goals". In Galina Ivanova's unflinching account -- all the more powerful for its austerity -- the Gulag is the ultimate manifestation of a more pervasive and lasting distortion of the values of legality, labor, and life that burdens Russia to the present day.

This book re-evaluates the architectural history of Nazi Germany and looks at the development of the forced-labour concentration camp system. Through an analysis of such major Nazi building projects as the Nuremberg Party Rally Grounds and the rebuilding of Berlin, Jaskot ties together the development of the German building economy, state architectural goals and the rise of the SS as a political and economic force. As a result, The Architecture of Oppression contributes to our understanding of the conjunction of culture and politics in the Nazi period as well as the agency of architects and SS administrators in enabling this process.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203007670

Much has been written about the laogai (sometimes likened to the Soviet gulag) in the People's Republic of China. Depending on the source, the prisons are described as nonexistent, enlightened institutions, or hellish places that subject the inmates to degradation and misery. The system is commonly thought of (by admirers and critics alike) as having a measurable impact on the national economy and providing significant resources to the state. Based on research in classified documents and extensive interviews with former prisoners, judicial personnel, and other insiders, and featuring case studies dealing with the three northwestern provinces, this book examines such assertions on the basis of the facts about this underexamined subject in order to arrive at a detailed, objective, and realistic picture of the situation. In the case of each province under study, the authors discuss the history of the provincial prison system and the impact that each has had at the macro, meso, and micro levels.