[bksvol-discuss] Submission/nonfiction
- From: "Deborah Murray" <murray.deborah@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 17 May 2010 15:58:35 -0400
Hi all,
I've just submitted for proofing "At the Point of a Gun: Democratic Dreams
and Armed Intervention" by David Rieff.
The book has been read through and corrected. Headers stripped; chapter
titles and page numbers present, protectedand formatted. 270 pages.
The adult rating should also be removed.
Synopsis:
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
forThe 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 Gunraises 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 thinking has changed both as he has reflected on
what it means, as in Iraq, to impose democracy by force, and as he has
witnessed, firsthand, what that redemptive project actually looks like in
practice. This is not an optimistic report. To the contrary, it is the
chastened conclusion of a writer who was once one of the leading advocates
of such interventions. But the questions Rieff raises are of the essence as
the United States grapples with the harsh consequences of what it has
wrought on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Deborah
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