{"product_id":"atrocity-a-literary-history-hardback-9781503640559","title":"Atrocity; A Literary History (Hardback) 9781503640559","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eAtrocity\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eA Literary History\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eBruce Robbins (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9781503640559\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eHardback, published 4 February 2025\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e294 pages\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 2.6 cm, 0.54 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\"Combining a creatively skeptical critical intelligence and an undercurrent of mordant irony, \u003ci\u003eAtrocity\u003c\/i\u003e is a superb literary and stylistic achievement. Anyone allergic to moral obviousness will find it as impossible to stop reading as I did.\"\u003cbr\u003e  —Laura Kipnis, author of \u003ci\u003eLove in the Time of Contagion: A Diagnosis\u003c\/i\u003e \"Robbins' brilliant, sweeping \u003ci\u003eAtrocity\u003c\/i\u003e seeks to release us from the 'indignation-free zone' into which atrocities normally fall. A counterintuitive reading of current discourses on violence.\"\u003cbr\u003e  —Bonnie Honig, author of \u003ci\u003eA Feminist Theory of Refusal\u003c\/i\u003e \"A probing study of the moral imagination, written with the erudite informality—and the ethical commitment—that we have come to expect from Bruce Robbins, one of our leading critics on the left.\" \u003cbr\u003e  —Adam Shatz, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Rebel's Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon\u003c\/i\u003e \"Robbins's affirmative genealogy of cosmopolitan human rights documents the making of moral expectations that deserve to be met in a persistently violent world.\"\u003cbr\u003e  —Samuel Moyn, author of \u003ci\u003eHumane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War\u003c\/i\u003e \"This book carries readers along with clarity, wit, and undogmatic moral seriousness.\"\u003cbr\u003e  –Christian Thorne, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Dialectic of Counter-Enlightenment\u003c\/i\u003e \"Robbins makes a humane and exhilarating case for the critical consciousness of atrocity. This is an essential, unsparing and often searing exploration of representations of violence that locates narratives of atrocity at the ethical heart of the humanities.\"\u003cbr\u003e  –Patrick Deer, author of \u003ci\u003eCulture in Camouflage: War, Empire, and Modern British Literature\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eExploring literary representations of mass violence, Bruce Robbins traces the emergence of a cosmopolitan recognition of atrocity.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eMass violence did not always have a name. Like conquest, what we think of now as atrocities have not always invited indignation or been seen to violate moral norms. Venturing from the Bible to Zadie Smith, Robbins explores the literature of suffering, to show how, over time, abhorrence of mass violence takes shape. With it comes the emergence of a necessary element of cosmopolitanism: the ability to look at one's own nation with the critical eyes of a stranger.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eDrawing on a vast written archive and with penetrating insight, Robbins takes up such literary representations of violence as Bartolomé de las Casas's account of his fellow Spaniards' atrocities, Kurt Vonnegut's \u003ci\u003eSlaughterhouse-Five\u003c\/i\u003e, Grimmelshausen's 1668 novel \u003ci\u003eSimplicissimus\u003c\/i\u003e, David Mitchell's \u003ci\u003eCloud Atlas\u003c\/i\u003e, Gabriel García Márquez's \u003ci\u003eOne Hundred Years of Solitude\u003c\/i\u003e, Homero Aridjis's short novel \u003ci\u003eSmyrna in Flames\u003c\/i\u003e, and Tolstoy's \u003ci\u003eHadji Murat\u003c\/i\u003e. These essential texts do more than simply testify to atrocious acts. In their literariness, they take the risk of contextualizing and relativizing, thereby extending beyond the legal paradigm of accusation. They recognize atrocity as a moral scandal about which something should be done and can be done, while they also place that scandal within a larger and more uncertain history. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003ePreface\u003cbr\u003e  Introduction\u003cbr\u003e  1. Violence Was Like the Weather\u003cbr\u003e  2. Plunder: Historicizing Atrocity\u003cbr\u003e  3. Self-Scrutiny in the Era of High Imperialism\u003cbr\u003e  4. Contextualizing and Decontextualizing in the Twentieth Century\u003cbr\u003e  5. Confusions of Self-Indictment\u003cbr\u003e  6. Strategy from Below\u003cbr\u003e  Epilogue\u003cbr\u003e  Acknowledgments\u003cbr\u003e  Notes\u003cbr\u003e  Index\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"Stanford University Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52656058892568,"sku":"9781503640559","price":23.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/atrocity-a-literary-history-hardback-9781503640559","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}