BOOK: Svenja GOLTERMANN, Victims. Perceptions of Harm in Modern European War and Violence [The History and Theory of International Law, eds. Nehal BHUTA, Anthony PAGDEN & Benjamin STRAUMANN] (Oxford: OUP, 2023), 224 p. ISBN 9780192897725, 90 GBP

 

(image source: OUP)

Abstract:

Classifying people as 'victims' is a historical phenomenon with remarkable growth since the second half of the 20th century. The term victim is widely used to refer both to those who have died in wars and to people who have experienced some form of physical or psychological violence. Moreover, victimhood has become a shorthand for any injustice suffered. This can be seen in many contexts: in debates on social justice, when claims for compensation are made, human rights are defended, past crimes are publicly commemorated, or humanitarian intervention is called for. By adopting a history of knowledge approach, Victims takes a fresh look at the phenomenon of classifying people as victims. It goes beyond existing narratives to provide a new and comprehensive explanation of the complex genealogy of modern concepts of victimhood. In order to reveal the fundamental shifts in perceptions and interpretations of harm, this book reconstructs the emergence of the figure of the victim from the late 18th century to the present. Focusing on Western Europe, it shows that neither the World Wars nor the Holocaust were the only reasons for this shift. Instead, changing power relations and new knowledge, especially in medicine and law, fundamentally altered perceptions and interpretations of death and suffering, of legitimate and illegitimate violence. Today, the debate takes another turn with the widespread criticism of victim attribution and the increasing delegitimisation of the term. Svenja Goltermann tells this story with brilliant clarity - without subscribing to the new denigration of the victim.

On the author:

Svenja Goltermann is Professor of Modern History at the Department of History at the University of Zurich. Her research focuses primarily on the history of violence, the history of changing conceptions of suffering, vulnerability, and trauma, the history of memory cultures, and the history of knowledge. She has published widely on these subjects, including the award-winning book The War in Their Minds: German Soldiers and Their Violent Pasts in West Germany (2017), first published in German in 2009. Her most recent monograph dealt with changing perception of victimhood (2017). She is currently working on a book-length project that explores the broadening of the understanding of violence in Western Europe since the 1960s to trace the genealogies of this recent phenomenon and to reveal its effects. 

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