I You We Them: Journeys Beyond Evil: The Desk Killer in History and Today - Hardcover

Gretton, Dan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0434023477 ISBN 13: 9780434023479

Publisher: William Heinemann, 2019

Synopsis

'I YOU WE THEM is a uniquely gripping journey around the landscapes of mass murder.'
-Philippe Sands, author of East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes against Humanity

'A shockingly important and incisive book.' David Olusoga

A landmark historical investigation into crimes against humanity and the nature of evil that is over two decades in the making.

'The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.' Hannah Arendt

I You We Them is a study of the psychology of some of the least visible perpetrators of crimes against humanity, the 'desk killers' who ordered and directed some of the worst atrocities of the last two hundred years. It is also an exploration of corporate responsibility and personal culpability today, connecting the bureaucratic blindness that created desk killing to the same moral myopia that exists now in the calm, clean offices of global capitalism.

It is a journal of discovery, based on decades of research, interviews with hundreds of participants, and extensive first-hand experience. It encompasses extended investigations into a number of specific cases, moving from the brutalities of Empire to the scorched oil fields of the Niger Delta, from the industrial complex of Auschwitz to the empty sites of the Bosnian genocide; bearing witness, recording, and attempting to understand.

It is a synthesis of history, reportage and memoir, a sustained meditation on the nature of responsibility and injustice, and a book that will change the way we think about our past, present and future.

About this title

About the Author

Dan Gretton is a writer, activist and teacher. In 1983 he co-founded the pioneering political arts organisation Platform, in Cambridge, where he studied English literature. As well as working with Platform over many years on the human rights and environmental impacts of corporations, he has also developed radical initiatives in adult education and has lectured internationally on the subject of the ‘desk killer’. After more than a decade of research, aided by a major award from the Lannan Foundation, he embarked on the writing of I You We Them. He currently divides his time between north-west Wales and east London, where he shares his garden with a family of foxes.

Edition details

• Publisher: William Heinemann
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0434023477
• ISBN 13: 9780434023479
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 1104