Writing from the front lines of the hot wars of the post-Cold War world
-- the Balkans, Africa, the Middle East, and most recently Afghanistan
and Iraq for The New York Times Magazine -- David Rieff witnessed
firsthand most of the armed interventions waged by the West or the
United Nations in the name of human rights and democratization. His
report is anything but reassuring. In this timely collection of his most
illuminating articles, Rieff, one of our leading experts on the
subject, reassesses some of his own judgments about the use of military
might to solve the world's most pressing humanitarian problems and curb
the world's cruelest human rights abusers, presenting what, taken as a
whole, is a thoughtful and impassioned argument against armed
intervention in all but the most extreme cases. At the Point of a Gun
raises critical questions we cannot ignore in this era of gunboat
democracy. When, if ever, is it appropriate to intervene militarily in
the domestic affairs of other nations? Are human rights and humanitarian
concerns legitimate reasons for intervening, or is the assault on
sovereignty -- sovereignty that is as much an article of faith at the UN
as it is in Washington -- a flag of convenience for the recolonization
of part of the world? What role should the United Nations play in
alleviating humanitarian crises? And, above all, can democracy be
imposed through the barrel of an M16? Collected here for the first time,
Rieff's essays draw a searing portrait of what happens when the
grandiose schemes of policymakers and the grandiose ethical ambitions of
human rights activists go horribly wrong in the field. Again and again,
they ask the question: Do these moral ambitions of ours to protect
people from massacre and want match either our means or our wisdom?
Rieff's articles appear as they were written. Some, however, are
accompanied by brief reconsiderations in which the author describes how
and why his thin
Book Detail
- Publisher
- Simon & Schuster
- Publication Date
- 06/02/2006
- Number of Pages
- 288
- Binding
- Paper Back
- ISBN
- 9780743287074
- Category
-
Non Fiction , Current Affairs
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