Book Description
For readers of Philip Gourevitch, David Rieff, and Samantha Power, a sober, vitally important book on the global tragedy of child soldiers
Ida, a member of Sri Lanka's Female Tamil Tigers, fought with one of the longest-surviving and successful guerilla movements in the world. She is sixteen. Francois, a fourteen-year-old Rwandan child of mixed ethnicity, was forced by Hutu militiamen to hack to death his sister's Tutsi children.
More than 250,000 children have fought in three dozen conflicts around the world, but growing exploitation of children in war is staggering and little known. From the "little bees" of Colombia to the "baby brigades" of Sri Lanka, the subject of child soldiers is changing the face of terrorism. For the last seven years, Jimmie Briggs has been talking to, writing about, and researching the plight of these young combatants. The horrific stories of these children, dramatically told in their own voices, reveal the devastating consequences of this global tragedy. Cogent, passionate, impeccably researched, and compellingly told, Innocents Lost is the fullest, most personal and powerful examination yet of the lives of child soldiers.
Customer Reviews:
Good Anecdotal Information, but Limited in Scope.......2006-06-09
Although children have never been fully excluded from acts of war, the rates of child participation in armed struggle has increased dramatically in the past decades. As such, a growing literature is emerging on the subject and drawing light to a growing global problem. Riggs work spans the developing world in the search of personal accounts of children at war.
The author speaks personally with children who participated in war, their families, and others affected by armed conflict. The book spans the globe, ranging in location from West Africa to South Asia, and examining the present conflict in Afghanistan. With each location the reader is given an eye witness account of the brutality of child conscription. All though much of work is based on anecdotal information, the book contributes significantly to the cannon. The case studies provide food for thought regarding a variety of geographical regions and provide significant background to a host of conflicts employing child soldiers.
The limitations of the book mainly arise from the limited scope of the work. Riggs avoids an examination of the unique socio-economic circumstances that accompany many of the conflicts employing child soldiers, or truly addressing the long-term repercussions for a nation embroiled in conflict with child soldiers. In addition, it would be helpful if Riggs would have examined in greater depth the many development programs addressing children at war. Nevertheless, Riggs provides an enlightening and readable book and will not disappoint those attempting to better understand the emerging problem of children at war.
A deeper understanding about the experience of child soldiers.......2006-04-06
Jimmie Briggs, the author of this book details with great compassion and strong writing the personal accounts of children who are recruited as child soldiers. His telling of their stories deepens your understanding and connection with this growing humanitarian issue. As you read the book you cannot forgot the personal stories of the children that Jimmie meets. These children linger in your mind and heart.
The book also gives you a good idea of what is being done to re-habilitate and re-orient children who have been soldiers by community based and faith based groups and others who are addressing the larger human rights issue.
I think this book will appeal to anyone who is interested in children's rights, international health and human rights. It is an engrossing and interesting read.
Innocents Lost: When Child Soldiers go to war.......2006-02-19
One of the most alarming trends in modern armed conflicts is the practice of using children as soldiers. These children are deployed both by government forces and guerilla groups. Inspite of several international initiatives to stop the child soldiers, including the United Nations practice of 'naming and shaming' the parties engaged in this practice, children continue to be used as soldiers in armed conflicts around the world.
Jimmie Briggs attempts to deepen our understanding of this terrible phenomenon by using the personal stories of some of the children in these conflicts. The book begins with the story of Francois Minani, a 16-year-old Rwandan son of a Tutsi mother and Hutu father who was forced by Hutu militiamen to kill his Tutsi nephews in other to prove his allegiance to the Hutu tribe. The story of clementine and her four brothers and sisters addresses the plight of " unaccompanied children" ie. those under eighteen without parental or adult member custody.
The book discusses the problem of child soldiers in the conflicts in Colombia which have been going on for a long time. According to the author, the conflict in Colombia is not solely about drugs but also about class, economics and power. Cocaine is merely the ugly means for perpetuating an unseemingly unwinnable war. Consequently, children have been the main casualties both as victims of violence and as perpetrators of it. Jimmie Briggs also used the conflicts in Sri Lanka, Uganda and Afghanistan to show that the methods used by these armed groups to recruit children are the same all over the world.
The great strength of the book lies in the way the children's stories are used to illustrate the problem of child soldiers: how they are recruited- including voluntary recruitment, abduction, coercion, indoctrination and physical threat- as well as their effect on the children. the author does not probe too deeply into the various International rules to stop Child soldiers and the role of the United Nations in implementing them. Instead he appears to let the children's stories expose the deficiencies in the system. And best of all, the stories are well researched, mesmerising and pretty short.
The book concludes with some recommendations. Such as curbing the flow of small arms and Light weapons to nations where children are at risk of being recruited, implementation of the optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Support for the International Criminal Court, the Protection of demobilized child soldiers and the sensitization of American forces to the personal and moral consequences of confronting children on the battlefield before and after deployment.
I went through a lot of emotions when I read the book. I was moved to tears at what the children went through, moved to anger at the perpetrators and later decided to do something about this tragedy by writing this review in other to give it the attention it deserves. The book is not too graphic but passionate and descriptive enough to put one there. I would recommend it to everybody particularly those interested in Child rights, Human rights and Humanitarian law.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Black Issues Book Review, published by Cox, Matthews & Associates on January 1, 2006. The length of the article is 548 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Innocents Lost: When Child Soldiers Go to War.(Book Review)
Author: Clarence V. Reynolds
Publication:
Black Issues Book Review (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 1, 2006
Publisher: Cox, Matthews & Associates
Volume: 8
Issue: 1
Page: 67(2)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
-- Boston Book Review
America's dark history of anti-Semitism, racism, and ethnic bigotry -- and many of the efforts to combat such prejudice -- has received growing attention in recent years. Yet one of the most important stories in America's struggle to overcome ethnic and religious hatred has gone largely untold. From the Depression to the late 1960s Jewish organizations -- working as the leaders in a broadly based social and political movement -- waged a determined campaign to eliminate all forms of discrimination and prejudice from American society. Today, many of the ideas that these groups developed about the sources of bigotry and its antidotes inform the civil rights and ethnic identity movements.
Stuart Svonkin delves into the archival records of America's three major Jewish defense groups -- the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, and the American Jewish Congress -- to offer the first comprehensive account of organized Jewish political activism against bigotry and for human rights. Jews Against Prejudice chronicles American Jewry's political ascendance, from the era before World War II, when Jewish defense groups first organized to fight mass anti-Semitism, to their emergence as the leaders of a liberal movement determined to address the nation's most pressing political and social problems.
Svonkin explores the impact that these Jewish groups had in the fight against racial and ethnic stereotypes. Beginning in World War II Jewish social scientists and other intellectuals began a concentrated effort to investigate the social and psychological bases of prejudicial attitudes, outlooks, and behavior. By the end of the war these social scientists became convinced that all forms of prejudice, including anti-Semitism, shared the same social and psychological causes, which, if discovered, could be successfully treated and eliminated. For over twenty years Jewish intellectuals and activists worked hand in hand to formulate practical programs to combat prejudice. They pioneered tactics -- including educational programs in the schools, appeals for tolerance broadcast through the mass media, and legal challenges in the courts -- that remain among the principal weapons of today's civil rights activists.
Svonkin shows how ideology and the shifting models of prejudice greatly influenced the means that each Jewish group used in its fight against bigotry and racism.
He considers the far-reaching effects of anticommunism in the 1950s and early 1960s, when Jewish political groups moved to support liberal anticommunism as well as to oppose the demagoguery of such figures as Senator Joseph McCarthy and the leaders of the John Birch Society. Exploring the tensions between American and Jewish identities, Svonkin argues that the revelations of the Eichmann Trial, the growing concern over Israel's security, and the persistence of anti-Semitism all shaped Jewish activism -- driving the shift from the universalistic liberalism of the 1940s and 1950s to the cultural assertion and political neoconservatism of the late 1960s.
Book Description
Since the end of the eighties considerable changes have occured in Eastern Europe. Socialist people's replublics have become parliamentary democracies and centrally planned economies are being transformed into market economies. These processes have been accompanied by an increase in prejudice in the media against all kinds of ethnic and national groups in that region. This study is based on social scientific research focusing on changes in prejudice in relation to the transformation processes, with special reference to prejudice against Gypsies and Jews in Hungary. Have there been changes in the level of prejudice against these groups since the transformation processes and to what extent can these changes be explained by these transitions? The results of descriptive analysis and testing of hypotheses using data from before and after the transformations have proved to be rather surprising.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, published by Institute on Religion and Public Life on December 1, 1998. The length of the article is 1657 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: JEWS AGAINST PREJUDICE: AMERICAN JEWS AND THE FIGHT FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES.(Review) (book reviews)
Author: Edward S. Shapiro
Publication:
First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life (Refereed)
Date: December 1, 1998
Publisher: Institute on Religion and Public Life
Page: 53(1)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Average customer rating:
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Prejudices against the Jews
Bernard Moses
Manufacturer: Emanuel Association
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
 General
| Jewish
| World
| History
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: B00085A958 |
Book Description
This book represents a new approach to philosophy. It treats philosophy as not a collection of systems, but as a study of problems. It recognizes in traditional philosophical systems the historical function of having asked questions rather than having given solutions. Professor Reichenbach traces the failures of the systems to psychological causes.
Speculative philosophers offered answers at a time when science had not yet provided the means to give true answers. Their search for certainty and for moral directives led them to accept pseudo-solutions. Plato, Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, and many others are cited to illustrate the rationalist fallacy: reason, unaided by observation, was regarded as a source of knowledge, revealing the physical world and "moral truth." The empiricists could not disprove this thesis, for they could not give a valid account of mathematical knowledge.
Mathematical discoveries in the early nineteenth century cleared the way for modern scientific philosophy. Its advance was furthered by discoveries in modern physics, chemistry, biology, and psychology. These findings have made possible a new conception of the universe and of the atom. The work of scientists thus altered philosophy completely and brought into being a philosopher with a new attitude and training.
Instead of dictating so-called laws of reason to the scientist, this modern philosopher proceeds by analyzing scientific methods and results. He finds answers to the age-old questions of space, time, causality, and life; of the human observer and the external world. He tells us how to find our way through this world without resorting to unjustifiable beliefs or assuming a supernatural origin for moral standards. Philosophy thus is no longer a battleground of contradictory opinions, but a science discovering truth step by step.
Professor Reichenbach, known for his many contributions to logic and the philosophy of science, addresses this book to a wider audience. He writes for those who do not have the leisure or preparation to read in the fields of mathematics, symbolic logic, or physics. Besides showing the principal foundations of the new philosophy, he has been careful to provide the necessary factual background. He has written a philosophical study, not a mere popularization. It contains within its chapters all the necessary scientific material in an understandable form--and, therefore, conveys all the information indispensable to a modern world-view.
The late Hans Reichenbach was Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles. His previous books include
Customer Reviews:
A Life-Changing Book.......2003-01-17
I read Reichenbach's Rise of Scientific Philosophy when I was a freshman in college, forty years ago. I have read many books over the years, but to this day I would say that this is the most influential book of my life. I started college as an ordinary Christian protestant. A philosophy course taught me about critical thinking. Then I started reading Reichenbach over Christmas vacation and I found it so fascinating that I couldn't put it down. I underlined a lot of passages. I added lots of exclamation points!!! By the time I was finished I was no longer a Christian. I was an atheist. Reichenbach makes it clear that you don't have to have religion to be a good, moral person. For a while I was a militant atheist, but I soon matured out of that. Still wanting something to belong to, I was a Humanist with a capital H for awhile. Then I joined an ultra-liberal Unitarian church that didn't require people to believe any doctrine, but which discussed all sorts of philosophical and religious views and emphasized the importance of freedom of speech and religion. Now, after much reading in psychology, anthropology and philisophy, I continue to be fascinated by the need for religion as a universal human characteristic. Nobody can deny the power of religious beliefs to affect human emotions and behavior, for both good and evil. But some people are capable of deeper, more critical thinking about religion. Some people have the strength to exist and thrive without a God, but with love for people, for human rights, and for the natural world. This book is for those people. ...
Mysticism on the rocks.......2001-01-30
Reichenbach pulls no punches. By the time he's finished, traditional, speculative philosophies are dead, buried and left without a headstone. (That these "undead" philosophies continue stalk the land, well, that's another story...)
According to Reichenbach - and his logic is impeccable - while the rationalist philosophers painted their mystical canvases, the parallel development of science, and scientific method handed the empiricists the tools they needed to produce the first grounded philosophic view. The search for certainty had the classic philosophers barking up the wrong tree. And meanwhile, the exploration of the microscopic world, coupled with the creation of a new mathematical tool - statistics - bootstrapped the scientific community into a model of the universe that was not causal, but probabilistic.
And what of ethics? Just as there are no absolute answers to the physical world, Reichenbach leaves the moral bucket empty as well. Your ethics, he argues, are ultimately what you choose to posit for yourself.
There is much more, lurking in this dense and difficult book. Published in 1951 - two years prior to his death - this is a tour-de-force of a man who was a contemporary of Einstein, and a participant in the famed "Weiner Kreiss" (Vienna Circle) which included such mighty minds as Kurt Godel. (See my review of D. Hofstadter's "Godel, Escher, Bach...") Reichenbach was one hot potato, armed with superior weaponry, and ready to take on the world.
The tragedy of this pursuit of consistency, which is the trademark of the scientific view, is that it probably will never come to guide society at large. Empty as it is, it is unacceptable to the majorities, whom Reichenbach was certainly not writing to, and who have no working concept of the scientific method. Most people do not want to hear that there are no ultimate answers.
One very big problem I see with this philosophy lies not with its truthfulness, but in its usefulness. We humans have a tough situation all around. We have a state of awareness which far exceeds that of our animal brethren, but we are bound with all the other animal traits, including mortality. Therefore, since we became aware of our frailties, we have consistently sought a coping mechanism. The rationalist view offered some hope - be it a blatant lie - but scientific philosophy, alas, does not. In truth, it runs counter to any coping mechanism one might choose to create. It is certainly not a philosophy for the weak and sick. This is the largest difficulty I see with its acceptance. As correct as Reichenbach may be, how can we stomach sending our children into a world where there's no intrinsic good or bad? How can we prepare them? The search for an easy answer may be wrong - but it's easy! And like water, humanity will likely take the easy path. There are many sweeter smelling flowers out there. Why choose this one? The author could have spent some effort making this philosophy more appealing to the masses, but he chose not to.
So is it just for scientists after all? The implications of scientists, blindly searching for more empty knowledge, as pawns of the capitalists, guided by a philosophy of blind greed, creating new and better tools and toys for the rest of us, yields a rather uncomfortable image in my mind of the future of the human race. But, after all, it truly doesn't matter what we do. And even though the truth is sometimes a bit scary, I do like the concept of creating my own vision and values.
Now it's true that humans created both traditional and scientific philosophy, and however different their origins may have been, they are both here to stay. Are there any implications for the future of society in general? After reading this book, I would have to say: "Probably".
Very interesting book, but not for everyone.
pre-Kantian speculative philosophy debunked.......1999-09-29
I am only half way through this AMAZING book, and the revelations are incredible. The first third is a history of philosophy and epistemology up until Kant, and shows you what true science is all about. This is a manifest for clear thought, if I've ever seen one, and I have... Carl Sagan's "The Demon-Haunted World". This book explains everything with reason and rationale, he has not yet gone into the metaphysic to explain anything. He doesn't expect the reader to go to another source, he explains it all in the book, says who he got it from, even what book. If you ever wanted to know what the scientific philosophy truly was you have to read this. It is not just about its rise, but explains WHAT it is, with that very important geneological information about how it came about. If you are religious, watch out. It will really shake your world, and you will understand why the highest percentage of agnostics is found in the intellectual, scientific fields that required the intellectual philosophic framework of science in order to be comprehended completely. EVERY SCIENCE STUDENT SHOULD READ THIS! Got to close up the computer lab, and happy reading.
Average customer rating:
- If you're truly bright, you will read this and enjoy it
- Exceptional book
- Good grief!
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The Cooling Continuum: The Rise and Fall of Species on Earth (Copernican Series)
Peter Bros
Manufacturer: Financial Book Partners
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Astronomy
| Astronomy
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Biology
| Biological Sciences
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Evolution
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0962776939 |
Customer Reviews:
If you're truly bright, you will read this and enjoy it.......2005-01-15
The reviewer below needs to get over it: Newton was wrong and Bros shows why. The negative reviews I've seen of this and other books from Bros are all the same--simple emotional attacks based on the reviewer's disagreement with Bros, but none of the reviewers can explain logically how or why Bros is wrong.
I don't agree with everything Bros says, and in some of his theories he is clearly engaging in speculation, but his attacks on mainstream science are 100% accurate.
If you are truly intelligent and capable of truly logical thought you will enjoy this book even if you disagree with parts of it. It is so rare to read a book from someone so committed to logical thought that it is a huge surprise and an immense pleasure.
Exceptional book.......2004-01-02
Bros carefully and logically takes apart some of science's most sacred beliefs. A totally new, and far more logical approach, to evolutionary issues and some basic physics issues.
Sure to trouble those who have been brainwashed by scientific academia.
Good grief!.......2000-02-01
This allegedly factual book is almost as far out as the science fiction novel "Newton's Cannon: Book One in the Age of Unreason", which is actually pretty good fiction. "Newton's Cannon" presents a fictional world in which Newton's thirty years of carefully investigating the claims of alchemy actually led him to discover the philosopher's stone and demonstrate the transmutation of metals, instead of laying the foundations of modern mechanical philosophy as he did in our world. "The Cooling Continuum" presents a similarly fictional world, in which Newton's (and Hooke's, to some extent) inverse-square law of gravitational attraction is not true. But "The Cooling Continuum"--apparently in complete seriousness--puts forward the claim that the world it describes is actually the one we live in.
In my opinion, Peter Bros is serving donuts on another planet, and quite possibly in a dimension orthogonal to ours.
Good grief!
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Travel America, published by World Publishing, Co. (Illinois) on July 1, 2005. The length of the article is 1307 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Montana's glorious glacier country: the state's northwestern corner abounds with delightful towns, classic lodges, watchable wildlife, and eye-popping scenery.(TOUR OF THE MONTH)(Cover Story)
Author: Donna Tabbert Long
Publication:
Travel America (Magazine/Journal)
Date: July 1, 2005
Publisher: World Publishing, Co. (Illinois)
Volume: 21
Issue: 1
Page: 24(3)
Article Type: Cover Story
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Books:
- Inside Hitler's Bunker: The Last Days of the Third Reich
- Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam
- Lee's Lieutenants: A Study in Command
- Manhattan Project: The Untold Story of the Making of the Atomic Bomb
- Marine: A Guided Tour of a Marine Expeditionary Unit
- Messengers of the Lost Battalion: The Heroic 551st and the Turning of the Tide at the Battle of the Bulge
- Military Flight Aptitude Tests, 6/e (Arco Military Test Tutor)
- Military Innovation In The Interwar Period
- Monte Cassino: The Hardest-Fought Battle of World War II
- Mounted Archers of the Steppe 600 BC-AD 1300 (Elite)
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Children at War
Armies of the Young: Child Soldiers in War and Terrorism (The Rutgers Series in Childhood Studies)
Girl Soldier: A Story of Hope for Northern Ugandas Children
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A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
