BiblioVault - Books about Human rights

Silencing the Guns in Haiti

The Promise of Deliberative Democracy

Irwin P. Stotzky

University of Chicago Press, 1997

Silencing the Guns in Haiti traces Haiti's halting and uncertain quest for democracy from the perspective of someone who played a leading part in every stage of that process.

"A provocative study of the prospects for the rule of law in Haiti."—Marilyn Bowden, Miami Today

"[Stotzky] deepens insights into the contradictory obstacles to democratic governance in Haiti."—Library Journal

"Controversial and stimulating."—Choice

"Lucid and informative. . . . Stotzky gives readers a good foundation for understanding the pressures facing the impoverished but determined Caribbean island."—Islands

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Simple Not Easy

Reflections on community social responsibility and tolerance

Terrence Roberts

Parkhurst Brothers, Inc., 2010

HE MADE HISTORY. HE TELLS THE TRUTHS HE KNOWS.
LEAD TITLE/Our National Conversation Series

"Terrence Roberts is in the truest sense an upstander - an individual whose voice and actions compel us to explore difficult topics and challenge us to face our shared history, honestly. His words and reflections celebrate the notion of difference, model socially responsible behavior and promote tolerance in our daily lives. Reading this book, you will be inspired, in Dr. Roberts's words, to 'think beyond the ordinary."
----Margot Stern Strom, Executive Director, Facing History and Ourselves, Inc.

"Terrence Roberts challenges all of us to make the world more inclusive by adjusting our 'mental maps.' He reminds us that we will not achieve that long-sought beloved community until we recognize the value of each individual-until we affirm each other. Simple, NotEasy is one trailblazer's mingling of history and contemporary mattersto engage a new conversations on community, social responsibility and tolerance. A powerful book by a civil rights legend."
--- Lawrence J. Pijeaux, Jr., Ed.D.,

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Strangers in Our Midst

The Political Philosophy of Immigration

David Miller

Harvard University Press, 2016

How should Western democracies respond to the many millions of people who want to settle in their societies? Economists and human rights advocates tend to downplay the considerable cultural and demographic impact of immigration on host societies. Seeking to balance the rights of immigrants with the legitimate concerns of citizens, Strangers in Our Midst brings a bracing dose of realism to this debate. David Miller defends the right of democratic states to control their borders and decide upon the future size, shape, and cultural make-up of their populations.

“A cool dissection of some of the main moral issues surrounding immigration and worth reading for its introductory chapter alone. Moreover, unlike many progressive intellectuals, Miller gives due weight to the rights and preferences of existing citizens and does not believe an immigrant has an automatic right to enter a country…Full of balanced judgments and tragic dilemmas.”
—David Goodhart, Evening Standard

“A lean and judicious defense of national interest…In Miller’s view, controlling immigration is one way for a country to control its public expenditures, and such control is essential to democracy.”
—Kelefa Sanneh, New Yorker

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The Subject(s) of Human Rights

Crises, Violations, and Asian/American Critique

Cathy J. Schlund-Vials

Temple University Press, 2020

Human rights violations have always been part of Asian American studies. From Chinese immigration restrictions, the incarceration of Japanese Americans, yellow peril characterizations, and recent acts of deportation and Islamophobia, Asian Americans have consistently functioned as subordinated “subjects” of human rights violations. The Subject(s) of Human Rights brings together scholars from North America and Asia to recalibrate these human rights concerns from both sides of the Pacific.

The essays in this collection provide a sharper understanding of how Asian/Americans have been subjected to human rights violations, how they act as subjects of history and agents of change, and how they produce knowledge around such subjects. The editors of and contributors to The Subject(s) of Human Rights examine refugee narratives, human trafficking, and citizenship issues in twentieth- and twenty-first century literature. These themes further refract issues of American war-making, settler colonialism, military occupation, collateral damage, and displacement that relocate the imagined geographies of Asian America from the periphery to the center of human rights critique.

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