Here are 100 books that Human Rights and Gender Violence fans have personally recommended if you like
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I’m fascinated by the question of where people get their values, particularly in our secular age. If you have a religion, the question is easy to answer: just point to your church or faith. For the unchurched like me, however, it’s tricky. We feel there’s something we should be able to point to, but what? As a professor of politics and philosophy, I’ve been exploring this question for more than a decade. My latest book argues that liberalism has become a comprehensive worldview and may be the key to who you and I are deep down.
Today, we tend to think of liberalism as a political ideology concerned with politics, law, free markets, and the like.
Rosenblatt’s wonderful book shows us how far—and how poor and anemic—that vision of liberalism is compared to that of its founders in the 19th century. Old-school liberals, including Alexis de Tocqueville, J.S. Mill, Germaine de Staël, and Benjamin Constant, pursued high-minded ethical ideals of what it means to live freely and generously in our modern world. We would do well to remember them.
The changing face of the liberal creed from the ancient world to today
The Lost History of Liberalism challenges our most basic assumptions about a political creed that has become a rallying cry-and a term of derision-in today's increasingly divided public square. Taking readers from ancient Rome to today, Helena Rosenblatt traces the evolution of the words "liberal" and "liberalism," revealing the heated debates that have taken place over their meaning. She debunks the popular myth of liberalism as a uniquely Anglo-American tradition, and shows how it was only during the Cold War that it was refashioned into an American…
I am an emeritus professor in the Department of Government, University of Essex. I taught political theory for many years with a speciality in the theory and practice of human rights. I'm the author of Edmund Burke and the Critique of Political Radicalism and Human Rights. I've published many articles in political theory, philosophy of social science, and human rights. I've directed academic programmes in political theory, The Enlightenment, and human rights. I've lectured on human rights in some 25 countries. I was a founder-member of my local branch of Amnesty International and served on the board of Amnesty’s British Section for five years, for two years as its Chairperson.
Perhaps the best explanation and defence of the contemporary concept of human rights. Nickel addresses theoretical problems of justifying human rights, practical problems of implementing them, and dilemmas to which they give rise. It is written with unusual clarity. On the one hand, as a philosopher he does not take for granted that human rights make sense or that all uses of the idea deserve our support. On the other hand, he does not engage in debunking the idea that has been fashionable on both the political left and right. This is a most thoughtful and balanced account and is highly recommendable to those seeking a readable introduction to the philosophy of human rights.
I particularly liked his `lawnmower theory of human rights'. One of the challenges to human rights theory is why we should think of human rights as `universal’ – as the UN and international human rights law…
This fully revised and extended edition of James Nickel's classic study explains and defends the contemporary conception of human rights. Combining philosophical, legal and political approaches, Nickel explains international human rights law and addresses questions of justification and feasibility. * New, revised edition of James Nickel's classic study. * Explains and defends the conception of human rights found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and subsequent treaties in a clear and lively style. * Covers fundamental freedoms, due process rights, social rights, and minority rights. * Updated throughout to include developments in law, politics, and theory since the…
I am an emeritus professor in the Department of Government, University of Essex. I taught political theory for many years with a speciality in the theory and practice of human rights. I'm the author of Edmund Burke and the Critique of Political Radicalism and Human Rights. I've published many articles in political theory, philosophy of social science, and human rights. I've directed academic programmes in political theory, The Enlightenment, and human rights. I've lectured on human rights in some 25 countries. I was a founder-member of my local branch of Amnesty International and served on the board of Amnesty’s British Section for five years, for two years as its Chairperson.
When social scientists began to ask the question – neglected by human rights lawyers and activists – whether international human rights law actually improved the enjoyment of human rights, they came up with largely negative answers: international human rights law had no effect, or very little effect, or was sometimes counter-productive, being associated with more human rights violations, depending on the research methods used. Kathryn Sikkink was among the leading scholars challenging these results, showing that the previous studies greatly oversimplified the human rights world.
Her book, Evidence for Hope, brings together the empirical evidence showing that human rights law sometimes, in some places, improves the enjoyment of some human rights. Sikkink defends the human rights movement from the charge of `utopianism’ by turning the tables on the critics and accusing them of unrealistic expectations for human rights law. The human rights struggle takes place on a hard road…
A history of the successes of the human rights movement and a case for why human rights work
Evidence for Hope makes the case that yes, human rights work. Critics may counter that the movement is in serious jeopardy or even a questionable byproduct of Western imperialism. Guantanamo is still open and governments are cracking down on NGOs everywhere. But human rights expert Kathryn Sikkink draws on decades of research and fieldwork to provide a rigorous rebuttal to doubts about human rights laws and institutions. Past and current trends indicate that in the long term, human rights movements have been…
I am an emeritus professor in the Department of Government, University of Essex. I taught political theory for many years with a speciality in the theory and practice of human rights. I'm the author of Edmund Burke and the Critique of Political Radicalism and Human Rights. I've published many articles in political theory, philosophy of social science, and human rights. I've directed academic programmes in political theory, The Enlightenment, and human rights. I've lectured on human rights in some 25 countries. I was a founder-member of my local branch of Amnesty International and served on the board of Amnesty’s British Section for five years, for two years as its Chairperson.
Wiktor Osiatyński was a distinguished Polish constitutional and human rights lawyer who died in 2017 and who, among many other achievements, contributed to the drafting of the post-Communist constitution of Poland. He was a member of the board of the Open Society Foundation and a greatly admired teacher of human rights. Human Rights and Their Limitsis one of the most carefully balanced accounts of human rights available in English. Osiatyński argues against human rights absolutism, pointing out that excessive respect for rights can undermine the democracy that is the precondition of rights protection, and that rights have to be balanced against other social and personal values.
He vividly illustrates the hypocrisy of states that talk the talk of human rights when it suits their interests but refuse to walk the walk when it does not. The hope for human rights, therefore, lies primarily not in the institutions of the…
Human Rights and their Limits shows that the concept of human rights has developed in waves: each call for rights served the purpose of social groups that tried to stop further proliferation of rights once their own goals were reached. While defending the universality of human rights as norms of behavior, Osiatynski admits that the philosophy on human rights does not need to be universal. Instead he suggests that the enjoyment of social rights should be contingent upon the recipient's contribution to society. He calls for a 'soft universalism' that will not impose rights on others but will share the…
I love psychological thrillers because I have firsthand dealt with OCD and gaslighting. Therefore, I find the human mind fascinating, and how the line between sanity and insanity is changeable. I think as humans we want to feel safe and hence, we box things into categories but all these thrillers I have recommended force you to look outside of the boxes and they can be chillingly thought-provoking. I am obsessed with writing that gives the reader such graphic insight into a character’s thoughts and actions. If you want unputdownable books, these are the ones for you!
This book personally resonates with me as I suffer with OCD.
The character must overcome countless mental challenges now that she thinks she has met the man of her dreams. It is a brilliant portrayal of gaslighting, so accurate and chillingly on point. If you like books that are emotionally immersive and you can almost touch and breathe the characters, this is superb.
Catherine Bailey has been enjoying the single life long enough to know a catch when she sees one. Gorgeous, charismatic and spontaneous, Lee seems almost too perfect to be true. And her friends clearly agree, as each in turn falls under his spell. But what begins as flattering attentiveness and passionate sex turns into raging jealousy, and Catherine soon learns there is a darker side to Lee. His increasingly erratic, controlling behaviour becomes frightening, but no one believes her when she shares her fears. Increasingly isolated and driven into the darkest corner of her world, a desperate Catherine plans a…
When my late wife Margo Wilson suggested, over 40 years ago, that we should study homicides for what they might reveal about human motives and emotions, her idea seemed zany. But when we plunged into police investigative files and homicide databases, we quickly realized that we had struck gold, and homicide research became our passion. Our innovation was to approach the topic like epidemiologists, asking who is likely to kill whom and identifying the risk factors that are peculiar to particular victim-killer relationships. What do people reallycare about? Surveys and interviews elicit cheap talk; killing someone is drastic action.
Rebecca and Russell Dobash had studied men's violence against their female partners for decades and were already heroes of the women's movement when they began interviewing incarcerated killers in Britain. Two fine books have resulted, one focused on men who killed women, the other on men who killed men. It is the former, especially the section on intimate partner homicide, that I find most captivating. The Dobashes skilfully blend national statistics with the self-serving testimony of their interviewees, who minimize their lethal acts as things that "happened" rather than things that they did, and apparently believe themselves to be the victims. These insights are essential.
In the United States and Great Britain, 20-30% of all homicides involve the killing of a woman by a man, and it is far rarer when a woman is killed by another woman. Unfortunately, this is not a very well understood phenomenon. Most books on the topic discuss serial killings, but those only make up 2% of sexual murder-a sensationalist subset of a subset. There has never before been a comprehensive book that has covered the entire scope of homicide cases in which men murder women.
Dobash and Dobash, two seasoned researchers and longtime collaborators in the study of violence…
Women’s rights in the workplace have been my passion for thirty years. As a sociologist who does fieldwork and oral histories, I am interested in understanding work through workers’ perspectives. The most important thing I’ve learned is that employers can be notoriously reluctant to enact change and that the most effective route to workplace justice is through collective action. I keep writing because I want more of us to imagine workplaces that value workers by compensating everyone fairly and giving workers greater control over their office’s rhythm and structure.
Roxane Gay’s memoir writing is brilliant! So is her collection of personal essays written by women who have experienced sexual harassment and rape.
Gay’s painful introductory piece on learning to understand her own experience of being gang raped at age twelve as “not that bad” illuminates the problem with rape culture. Women learn to blame themselves.
As the essays by other authors make clear, rape culture is bad and women are often denigrated when they speak out, but they must come together to foment change. Whether the essays focus on workplace harassment or date rape, they all hold key lessons for the importance of women’s sexual autonomy at work.
Edited and with an introduction by Roxane Gay, the New York Times bestselling and deeply beloved author of Bad Feminist and Hunger, this anthology of first-person essays tackles rape, assault, and harassment head-on.
Vogue, 10 of the Most Anticipated Books of Spring 2018 Harper's Bazaar, 10 New Books to Add to Your Reading List in 2018 Elle, 21 Books We're Most Excited to Read in 2018 Boston Globe, 25 books we can't wait to read in 2018 Huffington Post, 60 Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2018 Buzzfeed, 33 Most Exciting New Books of 2018
I have always been a history lover, but often find myself thinking about the untold stories. The people who were not writing the history books or commanding armies or ruling countries. I’ve always been more inspired by everyday people, especially women, who fought daily battles we know very little about. I find myself seeking out their stories. I love to imagine these women’s lives. What motivated them, what frightened them, what angered them. That’s what I’m most passionate about. Finding and telling their stories.
Valentine handles some very heavy topics beautifully.
Many of the characters are connected by only one thread: they are women trying to survive in West Texas in the early 1970s. It centers around a brutal incident and the quest to find justice for a Mexican teenage girl who was violently assaulted.
Throughout the story we get such an intimate look at these women’s lives. I felt like I knew them. I felt like I was sitting right next to them in their kitchen or on their front porch.
These women were all hardened by the trials life had thrown at them, and were battling the urge to protect themselves with the urge to protect one another. I loved this book because it was just so honest.
A top ten New York Times bestseller. With the haunting emotional power of American Dirt and the atmospheric suspense of Where the Crawdads Sing: a compulsive debut novel that explores the aftershock of a brutal crime on the women of a small Texas oil town.
'The very definition of a stunning debut' Ann Patchett
'Brilliant, sharp, tightly wound, and devastating' Elizabeth Gilbert
'Quite simply one of the best books I've ever read' Jeanine Cummins,
author of American Dirt
Mercy is hard in a place like this. I wished him dead before I ever saw his face...
After writing a novel about the toll true crime can take on victims’ loved ones and the risk it runs of glamourizing killers while overshadowing victims, I’ve been on the hunt for true crime books that don’t fall into these traps. The titles on this list showcase beautiful writing and tell compelling stories without dehumanizing the victims or glamourizing the perpetrators.
While on assignment for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Connors was raped by a man recently released from prison. Before, he lets her go, he tells her not to contact the police, warning her, “[…] I will find you.”
The phrase becomes the through line of Connors’ book, which is both about her quest to find a way forward after the assault and about her journey to uncover her assailant’s past and the reasons he might have committed this crime. The result is a poignant look at both the trauma left in crime’s wake as well as the societal influences that cause crime to occur in the first place.
A hard-hitting memoir about a woman's search to understand the man who raped her
Joanna Connors was thirty years old when she was raped at knifepoint by a stranger.
Many years later she realised she had to confront the fear that had ruled her life ever since that day. She needed, finally, to understand. So she went in search of her rapist's story, determined to find out who he was, where he came from, what his life was like - and what leads a person to do something as destructive as what he did to her.
I've been a researcher, educator, and practitioner of domestic violence services for over 15 years, and am extremely passionate about this topic. After having worked in the domestic violence field, I then pursued my PhD to study this problem, which I now continue to research and teach about as an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Moravian University. In our ever-globalizing world, I believe it's especially important for us to consider domestic violence from a cross-cultural perspective, and having studied this issue in Latin America and among Latina women in the U.S., I hope to spread that knowledge even further. More than ever, it is important for everyone to gain knowledge on this worldwide problem.
If you’re interested in learning about domestic violence from a cross-cultural perspective, the literature on domestic violence in anthropology is an excellent place to look.
This is the second book by Jennifer Wies and Hillary Haldane, two anthropologists who have carved out a space for understanding how to apply anthropological insights to actual domestic violence work. This book offers cross-cultural ideas for how to do just that from a variety of anthropologists working all around the world who continue to work together on this issue from an applied anthropological perspective.
Both Wies and Haldane are mentors of mine, and Haldane was a huge support in the development of my own research. I have also collaborated with several of the authors in this book and can attest to the excellence of their research.
Applying Anthropology to Gender-Based Violence: Global Responses, Local Practices addresses the gaps in theory, methods, and practices that are currently used to engage the problem of gender-based violence. This book complements the work carried out in the legal, human services, and health fields by demonstrating how a focus on local issues and responses can better inform a collaborative global response to the problem of gender-based violence. With chapters covering Africa, Asia, Latin and North America, and Oceania, the volume illustrates the various ways scholars, practitioners, frontline workers, and policy makers can work together to end violence in their local communities.…
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