Ideal Illusions: How the U.S. Government Co-Opted Human Rights (American Empire Project): Amazon.de: James Peck: Englische Bücher

Pressestimmen

"Chomskyesque . . . A useful, thought-provoking challenge to the Western human rights consensus."
--"Publishers Weekly"

"An engaging and original look at America's foreign policy, accessible and well researched."
--"Library Journal"

"A prodigiously researched, provocative critique."
--"Kirkus"

""Ideal Illusions "forces us to confront a great contradiction: how the noble vision of human rights has been compromised and manipulated to serve the purposes of the national security state and divert attention from deep economic, political, and military pathologies. James Peck's work, based on a rigorous examination of an enormous collection of official and archival documents, is essential, sobering, and eye-opening."
--John Dower, author of "Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II"

"This incisive and sophisticated analysis exposes the 'hidden history that once again reveals just how tied into U.S. national security concerns the evolution of human rights attitudes has been.' "Ideal Illusions "is a well-documented, impressive account and a timely warning to seek the interests that lie behind appealing rhetoric."
--Noam Chomsky, author of "Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy"

"In this searing book, James Peck strips away the comforting illusion that, give or take a mistake or two, U.S. foreign policy for the past thirty years or more has been shaped by a dedication to the principles of human rights. He demonstrates how, on the contrary, successive administrations have captured the language of human rights and bent it to America's purpose. In clear and compelling prose, Peck calls on the human rights community to understand the dangers of its reliance on American power--and on American citizens to address the contradictions between a genuine dedication to the rights of humanity and prevailing definitions of U.S. national interests."
--Marilyn Young, author of "The Vietnam Wars: 1945-1990 "

""Ideal Illusions

Kurzbeschreibung

The United States has long been hailed as a powerful force for global human rights. Now, drawing on thousands of documents from the CIA, the National Security Council, the Pentagon, and development agencies, James Peck shows in blunt detail how Washington has shaped human rights into a potent ideological weapon for purposes having little to do with rights - and everything to do with furthering America's global reach. Using the words of Washington's leaders when they are speaking among themselves, Peck tracks the rise of human rights from its dismissal in the cold war years as 'fuzzy minded' to its calculated adoption, after the Vietnam War, as a rationale for American foreign engagement. He considers such milestones as the fight for Soviet dissidents, Tiananmen Square, and today's war on terror, exposing in the process how the human rights movement has too often failed to challenge Washington's strategies. A gripping and elegant work of analysis, "Ideal Illusions" argues that the movement must break free from Washington if it is to develop a truly uncompromising critique of power in all its forms.

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an empire trying to justify injustice 13. Februar 2012

Von stan van houcke - Ver�ffentlicht auf Amazon.com

mr. peck has written a fascinating book which i read as a warning for what happens when power abuses idealism to justify its unjust policies. peck shows that after vietnam and watergate the usa could not rely anymore on anti-communism to portray itself as a viable alternative, so it needed a new justification and found it in the use of human rights as a tool of foreign policy. of course this didn't mean that washington itself would not violate human rights anymore. not at all, while american human rights organizations claimed the usa was the only world power that could protect human rights, the gulf between rich and poor kept on widening and the human rights of billions of people kept on deteriorating. in fact the idealism on which the american human rights movement was originally based, the ideals of the peace movement and the civil rights movement, was lost. it seemed as if in future one could have human rights without changing fundamentally the global injustice, the growing poverty world wide. the problem for the human rights organizations is now that they can be and are being used by the american state for policies which have nothing to do with human rights and everything with keeping the status quo in tact. what we see at this moment is that the sovereignty of states can be violated by the united states with the argument it is done to protect human rights while in reality the reasons are quite different. what mr peck makes absolutely clear in his historical account is that human rights needs to be based on justice, real justice, otherwise human rights will become injustice being justified by nice words and will finally be corrupted. interesting is the striking difference between an american lobby group as human rights watch and an european broad based organization as amnesty international. as a dutch journalist who travelled extensively through the middle east i was pleased to read such an illuminating book about such an important topic.

0 von 8 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich

A more honest title would be "A History of Human Rights, assuming that they were co-opted by the US" 7. Dezember 2011

Von Just Some Guy - Ver�ffentlicht auf Amazon.com

Format:Gebundene Ausgabe|Von Amazon best�tigter Kauf

I was disappointed in this book. Unfortunately, the book isn't really writing to persuade, but takes it as a given that the U.S. has manipulated human rights and right fifty years of history from that view point. Many readers will agree with that premise, and they won't be disappointed, the history is thorough. I work professionally in human rights, and I bought this book knowing I would disagree with that premise. I do like to read books that present views differing from my own, however, and read with an open mind. Unfortunately, his chief criticism of human rights NGOs seems to be that they are not pacifist/communist organizations, and that they've limited themselves too much to political rights. Those are also the rights that the U.S. generally espouses (and used against the communists). Peck seems to see that as collusion/co-opting (whereas most find it unsurprising, as both movements arose out of the same vein of enlightenment thinking and US political thought [as opposed to the USG] greatly affected the development of human rights). In short, if you agree with the premise of the book, I doubt you'll be disappointed. If you don't think you do, this book will likely just frustrate you.

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Ideal Illusions: How the U.S. Government Co-Opted Human Rights (American Empire Project) [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

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