Slaughterhouse by David Rieff
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(Paperback)
- Pub. Date: March 1996
- 276pp
- Sales Rank: 362,330
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Product Details
- Pub. Date: March 1996
- Publisher: Touchstone
- Format: Paperback, 276pp
- Sales Rank: 362,330
- ISBN-13: 9780684819037
- ISBN: 0684819031
- Edition Number: 1
Synopsis
In a shocking and deeply disturbing tour de force, David Rieff, reporting from the Bosnia war zone and from Western capitals and United Nations headquarters, indicts the West and the United Nations for standing by and doing nothing to stop the genocide of the Bosnian Muslims. Slaughterhouse is the definitive explanation of a war that will be remembered as the greatest failure of Western diplomacy since the 1930s.
Bosnia was more than a human tragedy. It was the emblem of the international community's failure and confusion in the post-Cold War era. In Bosnia, genocide and ethnic fascism reappeared in Europe for the first time in fifty years. But there was no will to confront them, either on the part of the United States, Western Europe, or the United Nations, for which the Bosnian experience was as catastrophic and demoralizing as Vietnam was for the United States. It is the failure and its implications that Rieff anatomizes in this unforgiving account of a war that might have been prevented and could have been stopped.
Annotation
The war that erupted in April 1992 has turned Bosnia into what Rieff starkly--and accurately--calls a slaughterhouse. In this chronicle of his time spent in Bosnia between 1992 and 1994, Rieff presents an unforgettable "lament for Bosnia and a stinging indictment of Western policy" (Michael Ignatieff, New York Times Book Review).
Anthony Lewis - New Republic
An epitaph for Bosnia, or for us. I do not think anyone should be able to read this book without pain and anger.
More Reviews and RecommendationsBiography
David Rieff
David Rieff is a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine. He is the author of seven previous books, including the acclaimed At the Point of a Gun: Democratic Dreams and Armed Intervention; A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis; and Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West. He lives in New York City.
Customer Reviews
Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the Westby Anonymous
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April 03, 2001: As someone who knows very little about the situation in Bosnia, I found ?Slaughterhouse? to be quite informative. As I began reading the book, I could not help but feel ashamed of the fact that I was someone who knows so little about Bosnia. But as I continued reading Rieff?s powerful indictment of the reaction of the United Nations and the West, I began to have a better understanding of why my awareness of the genocide in Bosnia was so lacking. I surely cannot attest to how accurate his scathing criticisms of the United Nations and the West are. In fact, his criticism is so unrelenting and one-sided, that I am certainly left wondering whether his emotions may have influenced his overall treatment of the West, which might be understandable given the circumstances and what he witnessed. Yet, even if his criticism of the West is overstated, I still felt that it shed some light on why a relatively educated person like myself was so ignorant of a genocide that was going on. But despite his emotional rants, Rieff?s book gave a relatively uninformed reader like myself insight onto what went on in Bosnia. In particular, I was particularly affected by the fact that so many of the heinous acts of ?ethnic cleansing? were carried out against former neighbors and friends. Moreover, his account of the history of the conflict, and Europe?s historical apathy (or antipathy) towards the Bosnian Muslims also was something from which I felt I learned a great deal. While the book may have shortcomings for any expert on the conflict and genocide in Bosnia, the book presents a good account of what went on and was allowed to persist.
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