Fans pick 100 books like Hiding in Plain Sight

By Eric Stover, Victor Peskin, Alexa Koenig

Here are 100 books that Hiding in Plain Sight fans have personally recommended if you like Hiding in Plain Sight. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Rough Justice: The International Criminal Court in a World of Power Politics

Tom Buitelaar Author Of Assisting International Justice: Cooperation Between UN Peace Operations and the International Criminal Court in the Democratic Republic of Congo

From my list on complicated international criminal courts.

Why am I passionate about this?

In my graduate studies, I had a fantastic professor who was able to make the politics of international criminal justice one of my favorite subjects. The intersection of law, politics, peace, and conflict pulled me in. But the fact that it also touches on human rights, state sovereignty, and the prevention of mass atrocities got me hooked. I ended up doing extensive research on the International Criminal Court and how it interacts with UN peace operations, and I have subsequently been teaching peace and justice at Leiden University. I publish regularly on these topics as well and am the associate editor of International Peacekeeping, one of the leading journals on international conflict management. 

Tom's book list on complicated international criminal courts

Tom Buitelaar Why did Tom love this book?

David Bosco is a journalist with excellent academic credentials. In this book, he produces work that is a superb combination of both. It is a riveting read, but also lays bare some of the key dynamics underlying how the International Criminal Court operates.

I know it’s a bit dated by now, but so many of the dynamics that Bosco discusses continue to be essential to understanding why international criminal justice isn’t just about the impartial application of the law but also can’t escape global power politics. I and many others interested in studying international criminal justice from a political angle continue to use it as a reference work. 

By David Bosco,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Rough Justice as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Ten years ago, in the wake of massive crimes in central Africa and the Balkans, the first permanent international criminal court was established in The Hague despite resistance from some of the world's most powerful states. In the past decade, the court has grown from a few staff in an empty building to a bustling institution with more than a thousand lawyers, investigators, and administrators from around the world. Despite its growth and the backing of more than 120 nations, the ICC is still struggling to assert itself in often turbulent political crises.

The ICC is generally autonomous in its…


Book cover of Distant Justice: The Impact of the International Criminal Court on African Politics

Tom Buitelaar Author Of Assisting International Justice: Cooperation Between UN Peace Operations and the International Criminal Court in the Democratic Republic of Congo

From my list on complicated international criminal courts.

Why am I passionate about this?

In my graduate studies, I had a fantastic professor who was able to make the politics of international criminal justice one of my favorite subjects. The intersection of law, politics, peace, and conflict pulled me in. But the fact that it also touches on human rights, state sovereignty, and the prevention of mass atrocities got me hooked. I ended up doing extensive research on the International Criminal Court and how it interacts with UN peace operations, and I have subsequently been teaching peace and justice at Leiden University. I publish regularly on these topics as well and am the associate editor of International Peacekeeping, one of the leading journals on international conflict management. 

Tom's book list on complicated international criminal courts

Tom Buitelaar Why did Tom love this book?

Many authors who write about international criminal justice forget that those who are the subject of criminal investigations have their own interests and goals in how they respond. The states in which these investigations take place try to use the courts and tribunals for their own purposes, like neutralizing opposition or presenting themselves as good international citizens.

In this book, Clark reports on his decade-long investigation into the effect of the ICC on politics in African states, especially the DRC and Uganda. I love how he draws on a variety of sources and hundreds of interviews to produce a detailed and nuanced story. 

By Phil Clark,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Distant Justice as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

There are a number of controversies surrounding the International Criminal Court (ICC) in Africa. Critics have charged it with neo-colonial meddling in African affairs, accusing it of undermining national sovereignty and domestic attempts to resolve armed conflict. Here, based on 650 interviews over 11 years, Phil Clark critically assesses the politics of the ICC in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, focusing particularly on the Court's multi-level impact on national politics and the lives of everyday citizens. He explores the ICC's effects on peace negotiations, national elections, domestic judicial reform, amnesty processes, combatant demobilisation and community-level accountability and reconciliation.…


Book cover of Justice in Conflict: The Effects of the International Criminal Court's Interventions on Ending Wars and Building Peace

Tom Buitelaar Author Of Assisting International Justice: Cooperation Between UN Peace Operations and the International Criminal Court in the Democratic Republic of Congo

From my list on complicated international criminal courts.

Why am I passionate about this?

In my graduate studies, I had a fantastic professor who was able to make the politics of international criminal justice one of my favorite subjects. The intersection of law, politics, peace, and conflict pulled me in. But the fact that it also touches on human rights, state sovereignty, and the prevention of mass atrocities got me hooked. I ended up doing extensive research on the International Criminal Court and how it interacts with UN peace operations, and I have subsequently been teaching peace and justice at Leiden University. I publish regularly on these topics as well and am the associate editor of International Peacekeeping, one of the leading journals on international conflict management. 

Tom's book list on complicated international criminal courts

Tom Buitelaar Why did Tom love this book?

Mark Kersten is one of the world’s leading authorities on the role that criminal justice plays in conflict. This book is my favorite guide to understanding the effect that international criminal courts and tribunals can have in the midst of an ongoing conflict because Kersten studies the multifaceted effects that ICC intervention has.

In contrast to the advocates and skeptics, Kersten argues we should remain agnostic and also accept that the ICC may sometimes have no effect at all. I also think it’s a great example of how careful fieldwork in fragile contexts can lead to important insights on the validity of some of our assumptions of how international criminal justice works. 

By Mark Kersten,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Justice in Conflict as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

What happens when the international community simultaneously pursues peace and justice in response to ongoing conflicts? What are the effects of interventions by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on the wars in which the institution intervenes? Is holding perpetrators of mass atrocities accountable a help or hindrance to conflict resolution? This book offers an in-depth examination of the effects of interventions by the ICC on peace, justice and conflict processes. The 'peace versus justice' debate, wherein it is argued that the ICC has either positive or negative effects on 'peace', has spawned in response to the Court's propensity to intervene…


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Book cover of Marriage and Fatherhood in the Nazi SS

Marriage and Fatherhood in the Nazi SS By Amy Carney,

When I was writing this book, several of my friends jokingly called it the Nazi baby book, with one insisting it would make a great title. Nazi Babies – admittedly, that is a catchy title, but that’s not exactly what my book is about. SS babies would be slightly more…

Book cover of The Local Impact of the International Criminal Court: From Law to Justice

Tom Buitelaar Author Of Assisting International Justice: Cooperation Between UN Peace Operations and the International Criminal Court in the Democratic Republic of Congo

From my list on complicated international criminal courts.

Why am I passionate about this?

In my graduate studies, I had a fantastic professor who was able to make the politics of international criminal justice one of my favorite subjects. The intersection of law, politics, peace, and conflict pulled me in. But the fact that it also touches on human rights, state sovereignty, and the prevention of mass atrocities got me hooked. I ended up doing extensive research on the International Criminal Court and how it interacts with UN peace operations, and I have subsequently been teaching peace and justice at Leiden University. I publish regularly on these topics as well and am the associate editor of International Peacekeeping, one of the leading journals on international conflict management. 

Tom's book list on complicated international criminal courts

Tom Buitelaar Why did Tom love this book?

If you want to have an informed conversation about the effectiveness of international criminal justice, it is vital to understand two things. One, that whether or not it’s effective entirely depends on how you measure ‘effectiveness’. And two, that the local context in which an international court operates is going to have a major effect on how effective it can be at anything.

I enjoyed Wierda’s book because she clearly works out these important starting points and studies the ICC’s impact in four very different countries: Afghanistan, Colombia, Libya and Uganda. She also is careful to distinguish between different kinds of effectiveness (systemic, transformative, reparative and demonstrative), enabling us to have much more sophisticated conversations about the results of ICC interventions. 

By Marieke Wierda,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Local Impact of the International Criminal Court as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The International Criminal Court seeks to end impunity for the world's worst crimes, to contribute to their prevention. But what is its impact to date? This book takes an in-depth look at four countries under scrutiny of the ICC: Afghanistan, Colombia, Libya, and Uganda. It puts forward an analytical framework to assess the impact of the ICC on four levels: on the domestic legal systems (systemic effect); on peace negotiations and agreements (transformative effect); on victims (reparative effect); and on the perceptions of affected populations (demonstration effect). It concludes that the ICC is having a normative impact on domestic legal…


Book cover of The Reader

Frank Trentmann Author Of Out of the Darkness: The Germans, 1942-2022

From my list on the transformation of Germany since Adolf Hitler.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a historian, and I am fascinated by the interplay and tensions between our moral and material lives. In my books, I try to recover how people in earlier periods thought about good and bad and why they acted the way they did. I try to understand how norms and customs change over time and how we came to think of our own as “normal,” which was all but normal not so long ago. I do not believe historians should play being prophets, but I do believe history can help us make better sense of the present.

Frank's book list on the transformation of Germany since Adolf Hitler

Frank Trentmann Why did Frank love this book?

There are plenty of books about memory politics and Germans’ slow and difficult way of reckoning with their evil past. What I really like about this book is how it brings to life these complex moral challenges through the story of a relationship between a younger man and an older woman who turns out to have been a camp guard under the Nazis.

The novel is about the tensions between love, responsibility, and forgiveness, but above all, it is about the difficulty of being German after the Nazis.  

By Bernhard Schlink, Carol Brown Janeway (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Reader as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'A thriller, a love story and a deeply moving examination of a German conscience' [Independent on Saturday]

For 15-year-old Michael Berg, a chance meeting with an older woman leads to far more than he ever imagined. The woman in question is Hanna, and before long they embark on a passionate, clandestine love affair which leaves Michael both euphoric and confused. For Hanna is not all she seems.

Years later, as a law student observing a trial in Germany, Michael is shocked to realize that the person in the dock is Hanna. The woman he had loved is a criminal. Much…


Book cover of Justice in the Balkans: Prosecuting War Crimes in the Hague Tribunal

Judith Armatta Author Of Twilight of Impunity: The War Crimes Trial of Slobodan Milosevic

From my list on war crimes trials and international justice.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a tired activist and recovering attorney. My professional focus on violence and humanity’s response to it began when, as a seven-year-old, the nuns at my Catholic school showed us newsreels of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps. This led me to adopt as my life’s guiding principle Julian Beck’s admonition “to redeem our share of the universal cruelty.” After 20 years in the U.S. Violence Against Women Movement, I absconded to the former Yugoslavia and found myself in the middle of a war during which I ran a war crimes documentation project (memoir in progress). I later reported on the international war crimes trial of Slobodan Milosevic.

Judith's book list on war crimes trials and international justice

Judith Armatta Why did Judith love this book?

An easily accessible overview of development and internal workings of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) up to the first stages of the Milosevic trial. Hagan satisfied my interest in what happens behind the scenes: the struggles, losses, and triumphs of creating the first international war crimes court since Nuremberg and Tokyo. I found particularly illuminating his discussion of how an ICTY prosecution team developed the legal theory, supported by substantial evidence, of rape as an intentional strategy to further the goal of ethnic cleansing, for the first time making it a war crime in its own right. His explication of the tension between diplomacy (which often utilizes amnesty in seeking an end to conflict) and accountability (which seeks justice for victims and humanity) was thought-provoking.

By John Hagan,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Justice in the Balkans as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Called a fig leaf for inaction by many at its inception, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia has surprised its critics by growing from an unfunded U.N. Security Council resolution to an institution with more than 1,000 employees and a $100 million annual budget. With Slobodan Milosevic now on trial and more than forty fellow indictees currently detained, the success of the Hague tribunal has forced many to reconsider the prospects of international justice. John Hagan's Justice in the Balkans is a powerful firsthand look at the inner workings of the tribunal as it has moved from an…


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Book cover of I Am Taurus

I Am Taurus By Stephen Palmer,

The constellation we know as Taurus goes all the way back to cave paintings of aurochs at Lascaux. This book traces the story of the bull in the sky, a journey through the history of what has become known as the sacred bull.

Each of the sections is written from…

Book cover of Reckonings: Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest for Justice

Michael S. Bryant Author Of Confronting the "Good Death": Nazi Euthanasia on Trial, 1945-1953

From my list on pondering the worst of the Nazis’ crimes.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve had a life-long interest in genocide dating back to my teenage years, when I read Simon Wiesenthal’s book The Murderers Among Us. Wiesenthal introduced me to the idea that governments sometimes murdered innocent people and could elude justice for their crimes. The question of human evil interacted with my theological interest in the problem of evil generally. Both genocide scholars and theologians were posing similar questions: how could people or God permit the occurrence of wanton evil when it was in their power to avoid it? And what should we do about genocide after it has happened? These questions launched my research into genocide and continue to fuel my study of this topic.

Michael's book list on pondering the worst of the Nazis’ crimes

Michael S. Bryant Why did Michael love this book?

In 2019 I published a review of Mary Fulbrook’s Reckonings in the journal HistoryThe review may have been the most laudatory I’ve written. Fulbrook’s study of the Holocaust and its noxious aftereffects lingers with me today. I’ve come to think of Reckonings as the War and Peace of Holocaust histories. Like Tolstoy’s epic, it paints on a sprawling canvas, exhausting the writer’s palette to portray the Holocaust as a searing multi-generational phenomenon. Reckonings does not approach the Shoah as most writers of the Holocaust do, namely, as a monumental but time-limited event. Fulbrook conceives of the Holocaust as a cancer that blights the victims and their families into the second and third generations. The radioactive fallout of the Shoah continues to the present day, poisoning people’s lives so deeply that no human response is adequate to deal with it. She upholds the tragedy of the Holocaust by refusing…

By Mary Fulbrook,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Reckonings as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A single word - Auschwitz - is often used to encapsulate the totality of persecution and suffering involved in what we call the Holocaust. Yet a focus on a single concentration camp - however horrific what happened there, however massively catastrophic its scale - leaves an incomplete story, a truncated history. It cannot fully communicate the myriad ways in which individuals became tangled up on the side of the perpetrators, and obscures the diversity of experiences
among a wide range of victims as they struggled and died, or managed, against all odds, to survive. In the process, we also miss…


Book cover of Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil

Naomi Roht-Arriaza Author Of The Pinochet Effect: Transnational Justice in the Age of Human Rights

From my list on bringing dictators and evil men to justice.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up in part in Chile, and when the Pinochet dictatorship started killing and torturing people, I wanted to do something about it. Years later, as a professor of international law, I helped countries figure out what to do after mass atrocities. Seeing how trials in other countries – or in international criminal courts – could break through barriers and make it possible to bring those who killed, tortured, or disappeared thousands of people to justice gave me hope. I wanted to tell the stories of the brave people who overcame the odds to do justice, in a readable and exciting way that also explained the legal and political issues involved. 

Naomi's book list on bringing dictators and evil men to justice

Naomi Roht-Arriaza Why did Naomi love this book?

The grandmama of human rights-related trial accounts, and for good reason. Arendt covered the trial of Nazi official Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in the 1960s. Eichmann had been living in Argentina, and was kidnapped and taken to Israel, where he was tried and condemned for his role in the Holocaust. Arendt raises profound questions about the value of trials in the face of overwhelming evil, about how trials structure narratives, and about memory. Still issues we grapple with today.

By Hannah Arendt,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Eichmann in Jerusalem as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'A profound and documented analysis ... Bound to stir our minds and trouble our consciences' Chicago Tribune

Hannah Arendt's authoritative and stunning report on the trial of German Nazi SS leader Adolf Eichmann first appeared as a series of articles in The New Yorker in 1963. This revised edition includes material that came to light after the trial, as well as Arendt's postscript commenting on the controversy that arose over her book. A major journalistic triumph by an intellectual of singular influence, Eichmann in Jerusalem is as shocking as it is informative - a meticulous and unflinching look at one…


Book cover of Mother Night

Jeff Berney Author Of The Fall of Faith

From my list on feed your dark side.

Why am I passionate about this?

Even as a boy, I could see (or maybe just sense) the darkness that resides just below the surface of this otherwise pleasant world. We all have stories, and the ones we hold closest to ourselves are often the darkest. Those are the stories that fascinate me the most. What are the limits of man’s menace? What causes seemingly normal people to snap? To turn on their fellow man? I could do one of two things with this fascination: become a sociopath (perhaps psychopath) or an author of dark, twisted, twisty tales. As you know, I chose the latter. 

Jeff's book list on feed your dark side

Jeff Berney Why did Jeff love this book?

If you’ve read any of my novels, you know I like my protagonists to be flawed. The more morally complex the main character, the better, in my opinion. And how can you get more morally questionable than an American who becomes a propagandist for the Nazi party during WWII? But wait. Is he a Nazi? Or is he just playing a part?

Another thing I love is when genre fiction has a larger moral theme that runs through it. What can I say? I don’t like to be preached at, but I do prefer stories with a strong point of view (whether I believe in it or not). And what bigger question can a book tackle than the one Vonnegut plays with in this book? Are we what we pretend to be? If you’re a WWII buff, or even if you just enjoy peeking into the darkest reaches of human…

By Kurt Vonnegut,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Mother Night as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“Vonnegut is George Orwell, Dr. Caligari and Flash Gordon compounded into one writer . . . a zany but moral mad scientist.”—Time

Mother Night is a daring challenge to our moral sense. American Howard W. Campbell, Jr., a spy during World War II, is now on trial in Israel as a Nazi war criminal. But is he really guilty? In this brilliant book rife with true gallows humor, Vonnegut turns black and white into a chilling shade of gray with a verdict that will haunt us all.

“A great artist.”—Cincinnati Enquirer

“A shaking up in the kaleidoscope of laughter .…


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Book cover of Who Is a Worthy Mother?: An Intimate History of Adoption

Who Is a Worthy Mother? By Rebecca Wellington,

I grew up thinking that being adopted didn’t matter. I was wrong. This book is my journey uncovering the significance and true history of adoption practices in America. Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women’s reproductive rights places…

Book cover of How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States

Why am I passionate about this?

I started my career teaching high school. I attended amazing professional development institutes, where scholars showed me how the stories I’d learned and then taught to my own students were so oversimplified that they had become factually incorrect. I was hooked. I kept wondering what else I’d gotten wrong. I earned a Ph.D. in modern US History with specialties in women’s and gender history and war and society, and now I’m an Associate Professor of History at Iowa State University and the Coordinator of ISU’s Social Studies Education Program. I focus on historical complexity and human motivations because they are the key to understanding change.

Amy's book list on books about twenteith-century U.S. History that make you rethink something you thought you already knew

Amy J. Rutenberg Why did Amy love this book?

I’ve read thousands of books on US history (for real). Many have made me rethink the narratives I learned in high school and college, but this is the only one that made me rethink what we mean when we say “US History.”

I can’t count the number of times this book made me say, “Wow!” out loud. As just a taste, Immerwahr writes that by 1940, 1 in 8 Americans lived outside of the states themselves, Asians constituted the largest American minority, the center of population was in New Mexico, and Manila was one of the country’s largest cities.

All of what I thought I knew changed once I included the reality of the American empire.

By Daniel Immerwahr,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked How to Hide an Empire as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Named one of the ten best books of the year by the Chicago Tribune
A Publishers Weekly best book of 2019 | A 2019 NPR Staff Pick

A pathbreaking history of the United States’ overseas possessions and the true meaning of its empire

We are familiar with maps that outline all fifty states. And we are also familiar with the idea that the United States is an “empire,” exercising power around the world. But what about the actual territories―the islands, atolls, and archipelagos―this country has governed and inhabited?

In How to Hide an Empire, Daniel Immerwahr tells the fascinating story…


Book cover of Rough Justice: The International Criminal Court in a World of Power Politics
Book cover of Distant Justice: The Impact of the International Criminal Court on African Politics
Book cover of Justice in Conflict: The Effects of the International Criminal Court's Interventions on Ending Wars and Building Peace

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