Most books on genocide consider it primarily as a twentieth century phenomenon. In "The Rise of the West and the Coming of Genocide," Mark Levene argues that this approach fails to grasp its true origins. Genocide developed out of modernity and the striving for the nation-state, both essentially Western experiences. It was European expansion into all hemispheres between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries that provided the main stimulus to its pre-1914 manifestations.One critical outcome, on the cusp of modernity, was the French revolutionary destruction of the Vendee. Levene finishes this volume at the 1914 watershed with the destabilising effects of the 'rise of the West' on older Ottoman, Chinese, Russian and Austrian empires, with devastating consequences for peoples such as the Armenians, and the East European Jews. "The Rise of the West and the Coming of Genocide "is the second volume in Levene's sweeping four-volume survey, "Genocide in the Age of the Nation State."

In this sweeping, definitive work, leading human rights scholar David M. Crowe offers an unflinching look at the long and troubled history of genocide and war crimes. From atrocities in the ancient world to more recent horrors in Nazi Germany, Cambodia, and Rwanda, Crowe reveals not only the disturbing consistency they have shown over time, but also the often heroic efforts that nations and individuals have made to break seemingly intractable patterns of violence and retribution--in particular, the struggle to create a universally accepted body of international humanitarian law. He traces the emergence of the idea of 'just war, ' early laws of war, the first Geneva Conventions, the Hague peace conferences, and the efforts following World Wars I and II to bring to justice those who violated international law. He also provides incisive accounts of some of the darkest episodes in recent world history, covering violations of human rights law in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Cambodia, Guatemala, the Iran-Iraq war, Korea, Tibet, and many other contexts. With valuable insights into some of the most vexing issues of today--including controversial US efforts to bring alleged terrorists to justice at Guantanamo Bay, and the challenges facing the International Criminal Court--this is an essential work for understanding humankind's long and often troubled history.

Propaganda, War Crimes Trials and International Law addresses the emerging jurisprudence and international law concerning propaganda in war crimes investigations and trials. The role of propaganda in the perpetration of atrocities has emerged as a central theme in the war crimes trials in the past century. The Nuremburg trials initially, and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda currently, have all substantially contributed to the development of international law in this respect. Investigating and exploring the areas between lawful and unlawful propaganda, they have dealt with specific mechanisms and consequences of the phenomenon within the perspective and framework of their international legal mandates. But the cultural codes and argots through which propaganda operates have vexed international courts struggling to assign responsibility to the instigators of mass crimes, as subtle, but potentially fatal, communications often remain undetected, misinterpreted or even dismissed as entirely irrelevant. With contributions from leading international scholars and legal practioners, Propaganda, War Crimes Trials and International Law pursues a comparative approach to this problem: providing an overview of the current state of the theory of propaganda in the social sciences; exploring this theory in the legal analysis of war crimes and related proceedings; and, finally, offering a study of the prosecution of propaganda-related crimes in international law, and the newly emerging jurisprudence of war crimes propaganda cases.

For far too long the discipline of International Relations has failed to engage with the study of genocide. This is despite the fact that genocide holds a direct relationship with the central concepts of international relations: the state, war, power, and security. This bold, innovative and unique book sets out to tackle this by bringing the concept of genocide into the discipline of IR, via the English School, in order to theorise the relationship between genocide, justice, and order. Drawing on a wide-range of primary and secondary interdisciplinary material from International Relations, Genocide Studies, Security Studies, International Law, History, Politics and Political Theory, this book aims to understand genocide within the context of International Relations and the implications that this has on policymaking. Gallagher identifies the obstacles and challenges involved in bringing the study of genocide into IR and uniquely analyses the impact of genocide on the ordering structure of international society.

Elements of Genocide provides an authoritative evaluation of the current perception of the crime, as it appears in the decisions of judicial authorities, the writings of the foremost academic experts in the field, and in the texts of Commission Reports. Genocide constitutes one of the most significant problems in contemporary international law. Within the last fifteen years, the world has witnessed genocidal conduct in Rwanda and Bosnia and Herzegovina, while the debate on the commission of genocide in Darfur and the DR Congo is ongoing. Within the same period, the prosecution of suspected g nocidaires has taken place in international tribunals, internationalised tribunals and domestic courts; and the names of Slobodan Milosevic, Radovan Karadzic and Saddam Hussein feature among those against whom charges of genocide were brought. Pursuing an interdisciplinary examination of the existing case law on genocide in international and domestic courts, Elements of Genocide comprehensive and accessible reflection on the crime of genocide, and its inherent complexities.

The fourth edition of "Centuries of Genocide: Essays and Eyewitness Accounts" addresses examples of genocides perpetrated in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. Each chapter of the book is written by a recognized expert in the field, collectively demonstrating a wide range of disciplinary perspectives. The book is framed by an introductory essay that spells out definitional issues, as well as the promises, complexities, and barriers to the prevention and intervention of genocide.

To help the reader learn about the similarities and differences among the various cases, each case is structured around specific leading questions. In every chapter authors address: Who committed the genocide? How was the genocide committed? Why was the genocide committed? Who were the victims? What were the outstanding historical forces? What was the long-range impact? What were the responses? How do scholars interpret this genocide? How does learning about this genocide contribute to the field of study?

While the material in each chapter is based on sterling scholarship and wide-ranging expertise of the authors, eyewitness accounts give voice to the victims. This book is an attempt to provoke the reader into understanding that learning about genocide is important and that we all have a responsibility not to become immune to acts of genocide, especially in the interdependent world in which we live today.

Revision highlights include:

• New chapters on genocide of Native Americans in the nineteenth century, genocide in Australia, and genocide in the Nuba Mountains
• New chapter authors on Herero genocide and Rwanda genocide
• Consolidation of the 3 chapters on the Holocaust into one focused case
• Several chapters from past editions that were omitted are now available on a companion website (Indonesia, Burundi, indigenous peoples)

Armenian national identity has long been associated with what has come to be known as the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Immersing the reader in the history, culture and politics of Armenia - from its foundations as the ancient kingdom of Urartu to the modern-day Republic - Gaidz Minassian moves past the massacres embedded in the Armenian psyche to position the nation within contemporary global politics. An in-depth study of history and memory, The Armenian Experience examines the characteristics and sentiments of a national identity that spans the globe. Armenia lies in the heart of the Caucasus and once had an empire - under the rule of Tigranes the Great in the first century BC - that stretched from the Caspian to the Mediterranean seas. Beginning with an overview of Armenia's historic position at the crossroads between Rome and Persia, Minassian details invasions from antiquity to modern times by Arabs, Mongols, Ottomans, Persians and Russians right up to its Soviet experience, and drawing on Armenia's post-Soviet conflict with Azerbaijan in its attempts to reunify with the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. This book questions an Armenian self-identity dominated by its past and instead looks towards the future. Gaidz Minassian emphasises the need to recognise that the Armenian story began well before the Genocide 1915, and continues as an on-going modern narrative.

In 1948 the United Nations passed the Genocide Convention. The international community was now obligated to prevent or halt what had hitherto, in Winston Churchill s words, been a "crime without a name," and to punish the perpetrators. Since then, however, genocide has recurred repeatedly. Millions of people have been murdered by sovereign nation states, confident in their ability to act with impunity within their own borders.

Tracing the history of genocide since 1945, and looking at a number of cases across continents and decades, this book discusses a range of critical and inter-connected issues such as:

• why this crime is different, why exactly it is said to be "the crime of crimes"
• how each genocide involves a deadly triangle of perpetrators (with their collaborators), victims and bystanders as well as rescuers
• the different stages that genocides go through, from conception to denial
• the different explanations that have been put forward for why genocide takes place
• and the question of humanitarian intervention.

Genocide since 1945 aims to help the reader understand how, when, where and why this crime has been committed since 1945, why it has proven so difficult to halt or prevent its recurrence, and what now might be done about it. It is essential reading for all those interested in the contemporary world.

Leading up to World War II, two Polish men witnessed the targeted extermination of Jews under Adolf Hitler and the German Reich before the reality of the Holocaust was widely known. Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish lawyer who coined the term "genocide," and Jan Karski, a Catholic member of the Polish resistance, independently shared this knowledge with Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Having heard false rumors of wartime atrocities before, the leaders met the messengers with disbelief and inaction, leading to the eventual murder of more than six million people. Messengers of Disaster draws upon little-known texts from an array of archives, including the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva and the International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen. Carrying the knowledge of disaster took a toll on Lemkin and Karski, but their work prepared the way for the United Nations to unanimously adopt the first human rights convention in 1948 and influenced the language we use to talk about genocide today. Annette Becker's detailed study of these two important figures illuminates how distortions of fact can lead people to deny knowledge of what is happening in front of their own eyes.

One of the most famous accounts of living under the Nazi regime of World War II comes from the diary of a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl, Anne Frank. Today, The Diary of a Young Girl has sold over 25 million copies world-wide; this is the definitive edition released to mark the 70th anniversary of the day the diary begins. '12 June 1942: I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support' The Diary of a Young Girl is one of the most celebrated and enduring books of the last century. Tens of millions have read it since it was first published in 1947 and it remains a deeply admired testament to the indestructible nature of the human spirit. This definitive edition restores thirty per cent if the original manuscript, which was deleted from the original edition. It reveals Anne as a teenage girl who fretted about and tried to cope with her own emerging sexuality and who also veered between being a carefree child and an aware adult. Anne Frank and her family fled the horrors of Nazi occupation by hiding in the back of a warehouse in Amsterdam for two years with another family and a German dentist. Aged thirteen when she went into the secret annexe, Anne kept a diary. She movingly revealed how the eight people living under these extraordinary conditions coped with hunger, the daily threat of discovery and death and being cut off from the outside world, as well as petty misunderstandings and the unbearable strain of living like prisoners. The Diary of a Young Girl is a timeless true story to be rediscovered by each new generation. For young readers and adults it continues to bring to life Anne's extraordinary courage and struggle throughout her ordeal. This is the definitive edition of the diary of Anne Frank. Anne Frank was born on the 12 June 1929. She died while imprisoned at Bergen-Belsen, three months short of her sixteenth birthday. This seventieth anniversary, definitive edition of The Diary of a Young Girl is poignant, heartbreaking and a book that everyone should read.

Propaganda, War Crimes Trials and International Law addresses the emerging jurisprudence and international law concerning propaganda in war crimes investigations and trials. The role of propaganda in the perpetration of atrocities has emerged as a central theme in the war crimes trials in the past century. The Nuremburg trials initially, and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda currently, have all substantially contributed to the development of international law in this respect. Investigating and exploring the areas between lawful and unlawful propaganda, they have dealt with specific mechanisms and consequences of the phenomenon within the perspective and framework of their international legal mandates. But the cultural codes and argots through which propaganda operates have vexed international courts struggling to assign responsibility to the instigators of mass crimes, as subtle, but potentially fatal, communications often remain undetected, misinterpreted or even dismissed as entirely irrelevant. With contributions from leading international scholars and legal practioners, Propaganda, War Crimes Trials and International Law pursues a comparative approach to this problem: providing an overview of the current state of the theory of propaganda in the social sciences; exploring this theory in the legal analysis of war crimes and related proceedings; and, finally, offering a study of the prosecution of propaganda-related crimes in international law, and the newly emerging jurisprudence of war crimes propaganda cases.

Rape, traditionally a spoil of war, became a weapon of war in the ethnic cleansing campaign in Bosnia. The ICTY Kunarac court responded by transforming wartime rape from an ignored crime into a crime against humanity. In its judgment, the court argued that the rapists violated the Muslim women's right to sexual self-determination. Announcing this right to sexual integrity, the court transformed women's vulnerability from an invitation to abuse into a mark of human dignity. This close reading of the trial, guided by the phenomenological themes of the lived body and ambiguity, feminist critiques of the autonomous subject and the liberal sexual/social contract, critical legal theory assessments of human rights law and institutions, and psychoanalytic analyses of the politics of desire, argues that the court, by validating women's epistemic authority (their right to establish the meaning of their experience of rape) and affirming the dignity of the vulnerable body (thereby dethroning the autonomous body as the embodiment of dignity), shows us that human rights instruments can be used to combat the epidemic of wartime rape if they are read as de-legitimating the authority of the masculine autonomous subject and the gender codes it anchors.

ISIS's genocidal attack on the Yezidi population in northern Iraq in 2014 brought the world's attention to the small faith that numbers less than one million worldwide. That summer ISIS massacred Yezidi men and enslaved women and children. More than one hundred thousand Yezidis were besieged on Sinjar Mountain. The US began airstrikes to roll back ISIS, citing a duty to save the Yezidis, but the genocide is still ongoing. The headlines have moved on but thousands of Yezidi women and children remain in captivity, and many more are still displaced. Sinjar is now free from ISIS but the Yezidi homeland is at the centre of growing tensions amongst the city's liberators, making returning home for the Yezidis almost impossible. The mass abduction of Yezidi women and children is here conveyed with extraordinary intensity in the first-hand reporting of a young journalist who has been based in Iraqi Kurdistan for the past four years, covering the war with ISIS and its impact on the people of the country. Otten tells the story of the ISIS attacks, the mass enslavements of Yezidi women and the fallout from the disaster. She challenges common perceptions of Yezidi female victimhood by focusing on stories of resistance passed down by generations. Yezidi women describe how, in the recent conflict, they followed the tradition of their ancestors who, a century ago during persecutions at the fall of the Ottoman empire, put ash on their faces to make themselves unattractive and try to avoid being raped. Today, over 3,000 Yezidi women and girls remain in the Caliphate where they are bought and sold, and passed between fighters as chattel. But many others have escaped or been released. Otten bases her book on interviews with these survivors, as well as those who smuggled them to safety, painstakingly piecing together their accounts of enslavement. Their deeply moving personal narratives bring alive a human tragedy.

In The Genocide Contagion, Israel W. Charny asks uncomfortable questions about what allows people to participate in genocide-either directly, through killing or other violent acts, or indirectly, by sitting passively while witnessing genocidal acts. Charny draws on both historical and current examples such as the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide, and presses readers around the world to consider how they might contribute to genocide. Given the number of people who die from genocide or suffer indirect consequences such as forced migration, Charny argues that we must all work to resist and to learn about ourselves before critical moments arise.

Radhabinod Pal was an Indian jurist who achieved international fame as the judge representing India at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal and dissented from the majority opinion, holding that all Japanese "Class A" war criminals were not guilty of any of the charges brought against them. In postwar Japanese politics, right-wing polemicists have repeatedly utilized his dissenting judgment in their political propaganda aimed at refuting the Tokyo trial's majority judgment and justifying Japan's aggression, gradually elevating this controversial lawyer from India to a national symbol of historical revisionism. Many questions have been raised about how to appropriately assess Pal's dissenting judgment and Pal himself. Were the arguments in Pal's judgment sound? Why did he submit such a bold dissenting opinion? What was the political context? More fundamentally, why and how did the Allies ever nominate such a lawyer as a judge for a tribunal of such great political importance? How should his dissent be situated within the context of modern Asian history and the development of international criminal justice? What social and political circumstances in Japan thrust him into such a prominent position? Many of these questions remain unanswered, while some have been misinterpreted. This book proposes answers to many of them and presents a critique of the persistent revisionist denial of war responsibility in the Japanese postwar right-wing movement.

Between February and September 1988, the Iraqi government destroyed over 2000 Kurdish villages, killing somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 civilians and displacing many more. The operation was codenamed Anfal which literally means 'the spoils of war'. For the survivors of this campaign, Anfal did not end in September 1988: the aftermath of this catastrophe is as much a part of the Anfal story as the gas attacks, disappearances and life in the camps. This book examines Kurdish women's experience of violence, destruction, the disappearance of loved ones, and incarceration during the Anfal campaign. It explores the survival strategies of these women in the aftermath of genocide. By bringing together and highlighting women's own testimonies, Choman Hardi reconstructs the Anfal narrative in contrast to the current prevaling one which is highly politicised, simplified, and nationalistic. It also addresses women's silences about sexual abuse and rape in a patriarchal society which holds them responsible for having been a victim of sexual violence.

The humanitarian tragedy in Darfur has stirred politicians, Hollywood celebrities and students to appeal for a peaceful resolution to the crisis. Beyond the horrific pictures of sprawling refugee camps and lurid accounts of rape and murder lies a complex history steeped in religion, politics, and decades of internal unrest. 
 
"Darfur" traces the origins, organization and ideology of the infamous Janjawiid and other rebel groups, including the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement. It also analyzes the confused responses of the Sudanese government and African Union. This thoroughly updated edition also features a powerful analysis of how the conflict has been received in the international community and the varied attempts at peacekeeping.  
 

By his own admission, SS Kommandant Rudolf Hoss was history's greatest mass murderer, personally supervising the extermination of approximately two million people, mostly Jews, at the death camp in Auschwitz, Poland. Death Dealer is the first complete translation of Hoss's memoirs into English. The Memoirs of Kommandant Rudolf Hoss were written between October 1946 and April 1947. At the suggestion of psychologist Professor Stanislaw Batawia and Professor Jan Sehn, the prosecuting attorney for the Polish War Crimes Commission in Warsaw, Hoss wrote explanations of how the camp developed, his impressions of the various personalities with whom he dealt, and even about the destruction of the millions in the gas chambers. This written testimony is perhaps the most important document attesting to the Holocaust, because it is the only candid, detailed, and (for the most part) honest description of the Final Solution from a high-ranking SS officer intimately involved in carrying out the plans of Hitler and Himmler. With the cold objectivity of a common hit-man, Kommandant Hoss bloodlessly chronicles the discovery of the most effective poison gas and the technical obstacles that often thwarted his aim to kill as efficiently as possible. Staring at the horror without reacting, Hoss allows conditions in his camp to reduce human beings to walking skeletons, then he labels them as subhumans fit only to die. Readers will witness Hoss's shallow rationalizations as he tries to balance his deeds with his increasingly disturbed, yet always ineffectual, conscience. Published here for the first time are several photographs, including those of Hoss, the Nazi occupation of Poland, and of the camp itself; original diagrams of the camps; the original minutes of the Wannsee conference; and Hoss's final letters.

In the wake of unthinkable atrocities, it is reasonable to ask how any population can move on from the experience of genocide. Simply remembering the past can, in the shadow of mass death, be retraumatizing. So how can such momentous events be memorialized in a way that is productive and even healing for survivors? Genocide memorials tell a story about the past, preserve evidence of the violence that occurred, and provide emotional support to survivors. But the goal of amplifying survivors' voices can fade amid larger narratives entrenched in political motivations.In After Genocide,Nicole Fox investigates the ways memorials can shape the experiences of survivors decades after mass violence has ended. She examines how memorializations can both heal and hurt, especially when they fail to represent all genders, ethnicities, and classes of those afflicted. Drawing on extensive interviews with Rwandans, Fox reveals their relationships to these spaces and uncovers those voices silenced by the dominant narrative-arguing that the erasure of such stories is an act of violence itself. The book probes the ongoing question of how to fit survivors in to the dominant narrative of healing and importantly demonstrates how memorials can shape possibilities for growth, national cohesion, reconciliation, and hope for the future.

Although more than 40 years have passed since the end of World War II, the subject of Nazi war criminals remains a timely and emotionally charged topic of interest to scholars as well as the general public. Administered jointly by the four major Allies, the Nuremberg trial of Hermann Goering and Joachim von Ribbentrop, among other Nazi leaders, has drawn much attention over the years. It was the U.S. Army, however, which was most active in bringing Nazi war criminals to justice and, between 1944 and 1947, the army prosecuted 1,672 individuals for violations of the laws of war. Most of the army's trials remained obscure and little-noticed, even though they dealt with almost 90 percent of all defendants in the American zone. This study examines the treatment of prominent and lesser-known war criminals in the U.S. Zone of Occupation, covering both the trial and clemency aspects of the American war crimes program. In addition, it also explores the relationship between the war criminals issue and U.S. efforts to democratize the Germans, German nationalism, U.S. constitutional issues, the cold war and German rearmament in the 1950s. Finally, the study analyzes the extent to which the U.S. Army war crimes program achieved its stated goals. Based on unpublished sources from both the United States and West Germany, many of which have only recently been declassified, this book provides fresh insight on Nazi war criminals and their treatment, as well as important issues relating to post-war Germany. This book will be of special interest to scholars and historians specializing in European and modern history, post-war Germany, U.S. foreign relations since World War II, the Holocaust, and U.S.military justice and war criminals.

This book is an examination of American army legal proceedings that resulted from a series of moments when soldiers in a war zone crossed a line between performing their legitimate functions and committing crimes against civilians, or atrocities.

Using individual judicial proceedings held within war-time Southeast Asia, Louise Barnett analyses how the American military legal system handled crimes against civilians and determines what these cases reveal about the way that war produces atrocity against civilians. Presenting these atrocities and subsequent trials in a way that considers both the personal and the institutional the author considers how and why atrocity happens, the terrain of justification, and the degree to which the army and American society have been willing to take military crimes against civilians seriously.

Atrocity and American Military Justice in Southeast Asia will be of interest to students, scholars and professionals interested in Military Justice, Military history and Southeast Asian History more generally.

Twentieth and twenty-first century communism is a failed experiment in social engineering that needlessly killed approximately 60 million people and perhaps tens of millions more. These high crimes against humanity constitute a Red Holocaust that exceeds the combined carnage of the French Reign of Terror, Ha Shoah, Showa Japan's Asian holocaust, and all combat deaths in World War I and II. This fascinating book investigates high crimes against humanity in the Soviet Union, eastern and central Europe, North Korea, China, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia 1929-2009, and compares the results with Ha Shoah and the Japanese Asian Holocaust.

As in other studies, blame is ascribed to political, ideological and personal causes, but special emphasis is given to internal contradictions in Marx's utopian model as well as Stalinist and post-Stalinist transition systems concocted to realize communist ends. This faulty economic engineering forms a bridge to the larger issue of communism's historical failure.

The book includes:

- a comprehensive study of the transcommunist holocaust

- a judicial assessment of holocaust culpability and special pleadings

- an obituary for Stalinism everywhere except North Korea, and a death watch for contemporary communism in China, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, North Korea, Cuba and Nepal

- a comparative assessment of totalitarian high crimes against humanity

- a call for memory as a defense against recurrent economic, racial and ethnic holocausts

The book will be useful to undergraduate and higher level students interested in Russian history, Stalism, communism, North and South Korean economic performance and international affairs.

Steven Rosefielde is a Professor of Economics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and a member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences.

Twentieth and twenty-first century communism is a failed experiment in social engineering that needlessly killed approximately 60 million people and perhaps tens of millions more. These high crimes against humanity constitute a Red Holocaust that exceeds the combined carnage of the French Reign of Terror, Ha Shoah, Showa Japan's Asian holocaust, and all combat deaths in World War I and II. This fascinating book investigates high crimes against humanity in the Soviet Union, eastern and central Europe, North Korea, China, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia 1929-2009, and compares the results with Ha Shoah and the Japanese Asian Holocaust.

As in other studies, blame is ascribed to political, ideological and personal causes, but special emphasis is given to internal contradictions in Marx's utopian model as well as Stalinist and post-Stalinist transition systems concocted to realize communist ends. This faulty economic engineering forms a bridge to the larger issue of communism's historical failure.

The book includes:

- a comprehensive study of the transcommunist holocaust

- a judicial assessment of holocaust culpability and special pleadings

- an obituary for Stalinism everywhere except North Korea, and a death watch for contemporary communism in China, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, North Korea, Cuba and Nepal

- a comparative assessment of totalitarian high crimes against humanity

- a call for memory as a defense against recurrent economic, racial and ethnic holocausts

The book will be useful to undergraduate and higher level students interested in Russian history, Stalism, communism, North and South Korean economic performance and international affairs.

Steven Rosefielde is a Professor of Economics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and a member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences.

A Palestinian activist jailed at sixteen after a confrontation with Israeli soldiers illuminates the daily struggles of life under occupation in this moving, deeply personal memoir.

“What would you do if you grew up seeing your home repeatedly raided? Your parents arrested? Your mother shot? Your uncle killed? Try, for just a moment, to imagine that this was your life. How would you want the world to react?”

Ahed Tamimi is a world-renowned Palestinian activist, born and raised in the small West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, which became a center of the resistance to Israeli occupation when an illegal, Jewish-only settlement blocked off its community spring. Tamimi came of age participating in nonviolent demonstrations against this action and the occupation at large. Her global renown reached an apex in December 2017, when, at sixteen years old, she was filmed slapping an Israeli soldier who refused to leave her front yard. The video went viral, and Tamimi was arrested.

But this is not just a story of activism or imprisonment. It is the human-scale story of an occupation that has riveted the world and shaped global politics, from a girl who grew up in the middle of it . Tamimi’s father was born in 1967, the year that Israel began its occupation of the West Bank and he grew up immersed in the resistance movement. One of Tamimi’s earliest memories is visiting him in prison, poking her toddler fingers through the fence to touch his hand. She herself would spend her seventeenth birthday behind bars. Living through this greatest test and heightened attacks on her village, Tamimi felt her resolve only deepen, in tension with her attempts to live the normal life of a daughter, sibling, friend, and student.

An essential addition to an important conversation, They Called Me a Lioness shows us what is at stake in this struggle and offers a fresh vision for resistance. With their unflinching, riveting storytelling, Ahed Tamimi and Dena Takruri shine a light on the humanity not just in occupied Palestine but also in the unsung lives of people struggling for freedom around the world.