As a child growing up in Cambodia, Ronnie Yimsut played among the ruins of the Angkor Wat temples, surrounded by a close-knit community. As the Khmer Rouge gained power and began its genocidal reign of terror, his life became a nightmare. Teenaged Ronnie was left orphaned, literally buried under the bodies of his family and friends. In this stunning memoir, Yimsut describes how, in the wake of death and destruction, he decides to live. Escaping the turmoil of Cambodia, he makes a perilous journey through the jungle into Thailand, only to be sent to a notorious Thai prison. Fortunately, he is able to reach a refugee camp and ultimately migrate to the United States, another frightening journey to the unknown. Yet he prevailed, attending the University of Oregon and becoming an influential leader in the community of Cambodian immigrants. Facing the Khmer Rouge shows Ronnie Yimsut's personal quest to rehabilitate himself, make a new life in America, and then return to Cambodia to help rebuild the land of his birth.

Discover unrelenting spirit and strength in the extraordinary true story of Franci: a woman who survived the holocaust against all of the odds 'Achingly moving, gives much-needed hope. Deserves the status both as a valuable historical source and as a stand-out memoir' Daily Express 'A story that needs to be heard' 5***** Reader Review ______ In 1942 Franci Epstein, a young Jewish woman, was imprisoned in Terezin, a concentration camp close to her home in Prague. Few could expect anything other than death. But for Franci it was the start of a journey that would take her into the very heart of Nazi genocide. Through a combination of guile, ingenuity, endurance and sheer bloody mindedness, Franci survived not one but five death camps, including Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. In this astonishing memoir, unpublished for 50 years, Franci lays bare the appalling sacrifices she and other women had to make to survive. It is a story of hope in the face of suffering; of one woman's determination to live. ______ 'First-hand accounts of life in Nazi Death camps never lose their terrible power but few are as extraordinary as Franci's War' Mail on Sunday 'Inspiring . . . Franci is someone many women today will be able to identify with' 5***** Reader Review 'Remarkable' Eva Fogelman 'A heartbreaking story of survival . . . fascinating' 5***** Reader Review 'Deeply moving and extraordinary' Helen Fremont 'Extremely moving, demonstrated amazing strength of will and determination to survive' 5***** Reader Review 'Incredible' Susannah Sirkin 'Devastating' Booklist

Houshang Asadi's Letters to My Torturer is one of the most harrowing accounts of human suffering to emerge from Iran and is now available for the first time in paperback. Kept in solitary confinement for over two years in an infamous Tehran prison, Asadi suffered inhuman degradations and brutal torture: suspended from the ceiling, beaten, and forced to bark like a dog, Asadi became a spy for the Russians, for the British - for anyone. Narrowly escaping execution as the government unleashed a bloody pogrom against political prisoners, Asadi was hauled before a sham court and sentenced to fifteen years. Here he confronts his torturer, speaking for those who will never be heard, and provides a glimpse into the heart of Iran and the practice of state-sponsored justice.

In this magisterial history of Lebanon, from the end of Ottoman rule to the Hezbollah and Hamas wars of today, acclaimed and fiercely independent Middle East journalist and historian David Hirst charts the interplay between a uniquely complex country and the broader struggles of the modern Middle East. Lebanon is the battleground on which the region's greater states pursue their strategic, political, and ideological conflicts--conflicts that sometimes escalate into full-scale proxy wars. Hirst warns that only serious diplomatic action from the Obama administration can prevent the next such action from engulfing the entire region.

This book proposes a new theoretical framework for the study of immigration. It examines four major issues informing current sociological studies of immigration: mechanisms and effects of international migration, processes of immigrants assimilation and transnational engagements, and the adaptation patterns of the second generation.

This book proposes a new encompassing theoretical framework for the study of immigration. Ewa Morawska provides a systematic comparative examination of the experience of turn-of-the-twentieth-century and present-day immigrants, and of eight contemporary immigrant groups in the United States. Within this interpretative framework, Morawska examines four major issues informing current sociological studies of immigration: mechanisms and effects of international migration, processes of immigrants' assimilation and transnational engagements, and the adaptation patterns of the second generation. This study focuses on the interactive framework in which immigrants, responding to circumstances not of their choosing, nonetheless make history. Though the book is shaped by an underlying theoretical framework, the key theoretical issues are explored through a comparison of eight different groups, providing rich, empirical, grounded material. As the groups range widely in origins and immigrant experiences, they shed light on one of the salient aspects of the contemporary immigrant phenomenon, namely its diversity. The concluding chapter offers a thoughtful review of the main agendas of immigration research in different regions of the world followed by the author's suggestions regarding better-informed cross-national/regional studies in this field.

The antibureaucratic revolution was the most crucial episode of Yugoslav conflicts after Tito. Drawing on primary sources and cutting-edge research, this book explains how popular unrest contributed to the fall of communism and the rise of a new form of authoritarianism, competing nationalisms and the break-up of Yugoslavia.

This special issue deals with the phenomenon of violence in the post-Soviet space. The central preoccupation is to examine both political and legal discourses and practices of internal and external violence, broadly conceived, in this space. Simultaneously the special issue aspires to situate these discourses and practices in the broader literature on political violence and ethnic and separatist conflict, and to examine these from political, legal, and security studies perspectives. The issue approaches the problem of violence in the post-Soviet space from three perspectives: The international-structural, inter-state, and domestic-political. The contributors focus on structural sources of violence: The relevance of the self-determination principle, the role of democratisation, and the relationship between violent behaviour inside and outside the state. They also analyse the role of the Russian Federation in generating, perpetuating, and mitigating political violence. Finally, they adopt a bottom-up approach, exploring how non-state actors contribute to political violence.

Chechnya From Nationalism to Jihad James Hughes "James Hughes has produced the most comprehensive, thoroughly documented, and up-to-date study of the Chechen conflict available. This sophisticated and subtle analysis places Chechnya in the context of broader debates about nationalism and ethnic politics, theories of empire and secession, and the propensity of new democracies to go to war."--Matthew Evangelista, Cornell University "Hughes offers a new way of thinking about ethnopolitical conflict by examining conflict dynamics as part of the causation chain in a conflict."--"History: Reviews of New Books" "Does the book have value for the military historian? Absolutely."--"Journal of Military History " "an excellent starting point for anyone looking for insight into how the radical Sunni Salafi movement both evolved and commandeered the struggle in Chechnya, which could also serve as an example as to how Al-Qaeda could hijack other nationalist struggles in the future."--"International Affairs" "An exemplary case study. . . . Throughout, insights into the consequences of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the reconstitution of a federated Russia, and the leadership of Vladimir Putin abound. . . . Highly recommended."--"Choice" The sheer scale and brutality of the hostilities between Russia and Chechnya stand out as an exception in the mostly peaceful breakup of the Soviet Union. "Chechnya: From Nationalism to Jihad" provides a fascinating analysis of the transformation of secular nationalist resistance in a nominally Islamic society into a struggle that is its antithesis, jihad. Hughes locates Chechen nationalism within the wider movement for national self-determination that followed the collapse of the Soviet empire. When negotiations failed in the early 1990s, political violence was instrumentalized to consolidate opposing nationalist visions of state-building in Russia and Chechnya. The resistance in Chechnya also occurred in a regional context where Russian hegemony over the Caucasus, especially the resources of the Caspian basin, was in retreat, and in an international context of rising Islamic radicalism. Alongside Bosnia, Kashmir, and other conflicts, Chechnya became embedded in Osama Bin Laden's repertoire of jihadist rhetoric against the "West." It was not simply Russia's destruction of a nationalist option for Chechnya, or "Wahabbist" infiltration from without, that created the political space for Islamism. Rather, we must look also at how the conflict was fought. The lack of proportionality and discrimination in the use of violence, particularly by Russia, accelerated and intensified the Islamic radicalization and thereby transformed the nature of the conflict. James Hughes is Professor of Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science. National and Ethnic Conflict in the 21st Century 2007 296 pages 6 x 9 5 illus. ISBN 978-0-8122-2030-8 Paper $26.50s 17.50 ISBN 978-0-8122-0231-1 Ebook $26.5s 17.50 World Rights Political Science Short copy: The conflict in Chechnya involves many of the most contentious issues in contemporary international politics. By providing us with a persuasive and challenging study, Hughes sets out the indispensable lessons for other conflicts involving the volatile combination of insurgency and counterinsurgency, most notably the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

From 1952 to 1981, South Africa's apartheid government ran an art school for the training of African art teachers at Indaleni, in what is today KwaZulu-Natal. The Art of Life in South Africa is the story of the students, teachers, art, and politics that circulated through a small school, housed in a remote former mission station. It is the story of a community that made its way through the travails of white supremacist South Africa and demonstrates how the art students and teachers made together became the art of their lives. Daniel Magaziner radically reframes apartheid-era South African history. Against the dominant narrative of apartheid oppression and black resistance, as well as recent scholarship that explores violence, criminality, and the hopeless entanglements of the apartheid state, this book focuses instead on a small group's efforts to fashion more fulfilling lives for its members and their community through the ironic medium of the apartheid-era school. There is no book like this in South African historiography. Lushly illustrated and poetically written, it gives us fully formed lives that offer remarkable insights into the now cliched experience of black life under segregation and apartheid.

Lawrence R. Alschuler uses the ideas of Albert Memmi, Paulo Freire, and Jungian psychology to explain changes in the political consciousness of the oppressed. His analysis of the autobiographies of four Native people, from Guatemala and Canada, reveals how they attained "liberated consciousness" and healed their psychic wounds, inflicted by violence, exploitation, and discrimination. Their lessons and Alschuler's proposed public policies may be applicable to the oppressed in ethnically divided societies everywhere.

George W. Bush calls them an 'alternative set of procedures', vital tools needed 'to protect the American people and our allies'. These 'tools' include forced standing for up to forty hours, sleep deprivation for weeks on end, dousing naked prisoners with ice water in rooms chilled to ten degrees, and strapping prisoners to inclined boards then flooding their mouths with water. These techniques are torture, and they are used by the United States of America. American Torture reveals how torture became standard practice in today's War on Terror. Long before Abu Ghraib became a household name, the US military and CIA used torture with impunity at home and abroad. Billions of dollars were spent during the Cold War studying, refining, then teaching these techniques to American interrogators and to foreign officers charged with keeping Communism at bay. As the Cold War ended, these tortures were legalised using the very laws designed to eradicate their use.

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.

Dear Leader contains astonishing new insights about North Korea which could only be revealed by someone working high up in the regime. It is also the gripping story of how a member of the inner circle of this enigmatic country became its most courageous, outspoken critic.

Jang Jin-sung held one of the most senior ranks in North Korea's propaganda machine, helping tighten the regime's grip over its people. Among his tasks were developing the founding myth of North Korea, posing undercover as a South Korean intellectual and writing epic poems in support of the dictator, Kim Jong-il. Young and ambitious, his patriotic work secured him a bizarre audience with Kim Jong-il himself, thus granting him special status as one of the 'Admitted'. This meant special food provisions, a travel pass and immunity from prosecution and harm. He was privy to state secrets, including military and diplomatic policies, how the devastating 'Scrutiny' was effected, and the real position of one of the country's most powerful, elusive men, Im Tong-ok.

Because he was praised by the Dear Leader himself, he had every reason to feel satisfied with his lot and safe. Yet he could not ignore his conscience, or the disparity between his life and that of those he saw starving on the street. After breaking security rules, Jang Jin-sung, together with a close friend, was forced to flee for his life: away from lies and deceit, towards truth and freedom.

This is Henri Nouwen's personal account of a pilgrimage to Santiago Atitlan, a Mayan town in the highlands of Guatemala. It was there that an American priest, Father Stanley Rother, was murdered by a death squad in the parish where he served. In traveling to Santiago Nouwen hoped to learn more about this modern martyr about the faith that drew him there, and the love that held him in place, even when his life was threatened.

The Ku Klux Klan established a significant foothold in Arkansas in the 1920s, boasting more than 150 state chapters and tens of thousands of members at its zenith. Propelled by the prominence of state leaders such as Grand Dragon James Comer and head of Women of the KKK Robbie Gill Comer, the Klan established Little Rock as a seat of power second only to Atlanta. In The Ku Klux Klan in 1920s Arkansas, Kenneth C. Barnes traces this explosion of white nationalism and its impact on the state's development.Barnes shows that the Klan seemed to wield power everywhere in 1920s Arkansas. Klansmen led businesses and held elected offices and prominent roles in legal, medical, and religious institutions, while the women of the Klan supported rallies and charitable activities and planned social gatherings where cross burnings were regular occurrences. Inside their organization, Klan members bonded during picnic barbeques and parades and over shared religious traditions. Outside of it, they united to direct armed threats, merciless physical brutality, and torrents of hateful rhetoric against individuals who did not conform to their exclusionary vision. By the mid-1920s, internal divisions, scandals, and an overzealous attempt to dominate local and state elections caused Arkansas's Klan to fall apart nearly as quickly as it had risen. Yet as the organization dissolved and the formal trappings of its flamboyant presence receded, the attitudes the Klan embraced never fully disappeared. In documenting this history, Barnes shows how the Klan's early success still casts a long shadow on the state to this day.

Twenty truth commissions have completed their work of examining and reporting on the abuses of deposed regimes, leaving behind a wide variety of records: transcripts, video and audio recordings, e-mail and computer files, and artifacts. Why save such evidence? According to Trudy H. Peterson, preservation "completes the commission's work. Oppressive regimes try to impose a selective amnesia on society... Saving the records makes sure that amnesia does not prevail." Final Acts is a guide to questions of law, politics, physical preservation, and access regarding materials generated by truth commissions. For example, how do the records relate to the law that created the commission? Who owns the evidence? Are there political constraints on the preservation of, or access to, some records? Does the country have an institution professionally capable of maintaining the records? Final Acts also describes the truth commissions that have completed their work so far and the disposition, or in some cases the loss, of their records.

As a member of Salvador Allende's Personal Guards (GAP), Luz Arce worked with leaders of the Socialist Party during the Popular Unity Government from 1971 to1973. In the months following the coup, Arce served as a militant with others from the Left who opposed the military junta led by Augusto Pinochet, which controlled the country from 1973 to1990. Along with thousands of others in Chile, Arce was detained and tortured by Chile's military intelligence service, the DINA, in their attempt to eliminate alternative voices and ideologies in the country. Arce's testimonial offers the harrowing story of the abuse she suffered and witnessed as a survivor of detention camps, such as the infamous Villa Grimaldi.
But when faced with threats made to her family, including her young son, and with the possibility that she could be murdered as thousands of others had been, Arce began to collaborate with the Chilean military in their repression of national resistance groups and outlawed political parties. Her testimonial thus also offers a unique perspective from within the repressive structures as she tells of her work as a DINA agent whose identifications even lead to the capture of some of her former friends and companeros.
During Chile's return to democracy in the early 1990s, Arce experienced two fundamental changes in her life that led to the writing of her story. The first was a deep spiritual renewal through her contacts with the Catholic Church whose Vicariate of Solidarity had fought for human rights in the country during the dictatorship. The second was her decision to participate within the legal system to identify and bring to justice those members of the military who wereresponsible for the crimes committed from 1973 to1990. Luz Arce's book invites readers to rethink the definition of testimonial narrative in Latin America through the unique perspective of a survivor-witness-confessor.

In providing a counterweight to the notion that political violence has irrevocably changed in a globalised world, Violence and the state offers an original and innovative way in which to understand political violence across a range of discipline areas. It explores the complex relationship between the state and its continued use of violence through a variety of historical and contemporary case studies, including the Napoleonic Wars, Nazi and Soviet 'eliticide', the consolidation of authority in modern China, post-Soviet Russia, and international criminal tribunals. It also looks at humanitarian intervention in cases of organised violence, and the willingness of elites to alter their attitude to violence if it is an instrument to achieve their own ends. The interdisciplinary approach, which spans history, sociology, international law and International Relations, ensures that this book will be invaluable to a broad cross-section of scholars and politically engaged readers alike. -- .

Focusing on the Greek Civil War (1946-1949), the last major conflict in Europe before the end of the Cold War, this study examines the political prisoners whose fate encapsulates the dramatic conflicts and contradictions of that dark era. New sources such as prisoners' letters, memoirs, and official reports, the author describes the life of the prisoners and the effect the prison administration and the prisoners' collective had on their personality. Drawing comparisons to political prisoners in Germany and Spain, the author sheds new light on our understanding of the ideologies and policies and their effect on individuals, which marked European history in the 20th century.

Focusing on the Greek Civil War (1946-1949), the last major conflict in Europe before the end of the Cold War, this study examines the political prisoners whose fate encapsulates the dramatic conflicts and contradictions of that dark era. New sources such as prisoners' letters, memoirs, and official reports, the author describes the life of the prisoners and the effect the prison administration and the prisoners' collective had on their personality. Drawing comparisons to political prisoners in Germany and Spain, the author sheds new light on our understanding of the ideologies and policies and their effect on individuals, which marked European history in the 20th century.

The British, Irish, Russian, American, German and Austrian contributors examine the intricate nature of the mass repression unleashed by the Stalinist leader of the USSR during 1937 38. The first part of the collection deals with annihilation policies against the Soviet elite and the Communist International. The second section of the volume looks at mass operations of the secret police (NKVD) against social outcasts, Poles and other 'hostile' ethnic groups. The final section comprises micro studies about targeted victim groups among the general population. FRIDRIKH FIRSOV Researcher, History of the Comintern WLADISLAW HEDELER Researcher, History of the Karaganda Gulag Complex OLEG KHLEVNIUK Department of Public Administration, Moscow State University, Russia NATALIA MUSIENKO Lecturer, German Language NIKITA PETROV Vice-Chairman, Board of Memorial, the most prominent Russian organization dedicated to uncovering the crimes of Soviet Communism ARSENII ROGINSKII Chairman, Board of Memorial HANS SCHAFRANEK Freelance Historian, Vienna DAVID SHEARER Associate Professor of History, University of Delaware, USA BERTHOLD UNFRIED Lecturer, Cultural Studies, Vienna University ALEKSANDR VATLIN S

The question of the responsibility inherent in the unrivaled might of the U.S. military is one that continues to take up headlines across the globe. This award-winning group of reporters and scholars, including, among others, David Rieff, Peter Maass, Philip Gourevitch, William Shawcross, George Packer, Bill Berkeley and Samantha Power revisit four of the worst instances of state-sponsored killing--Cambodia, Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and East Timor--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.Featuring original essays and reporting, "The New Killing Fields" poses 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 intervention in terms of today's post-cold war reality and the future of human rights.

The British, Irish, Russian, American, German, and Austrian contributors examine the intricate nature of the mass repression unleashed by the Stalinist leader of the USSR during 1937-38. The first part of the collection deals with annihilation policies against the Soviet elite and the Communist International. The second section of the volume looks at mass operations of the secret police (NKVD) against social outcasts, Poles and other 'hostile' ethnic groups. The final section comprises micro-studies about targeted victim groups among the general population.

This book analyzes the development of the Stalinist state of the 1930s from the perspective of the changing nature of center-local relations. It examines the trend toward greater central state control over the formation and implementation of economic policy and the shift toward increased state repression through a series of archive-based case studies of the center's interactions with its republican and regional bodies. The book provides the basis for a new conceptualization of the Stalinist state.