The Courage of Strangers: Coming of Age with the Human Rights Movement - Hardcover

Laber, Jeri

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1586480146 ISBN 13: 9781586480141

Publisher: PublicAffairs, 2002

Synopsis

Laber, one of the founders of Helsinki Watch (later to be known as Human Rights Watch) tells the story of her involvement in the influential nongovernmental organization. Beginning with her schooling and early years, she tells of her relationship to communist politics and her later involvement with anti-Soviet dissidents. Most of her work with Helsinki Watch involved documenting the repression of intellectuals in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and the vast majority of her moral outrage is reserved for the Soviet government. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

About this title

About the Author:

Jeri Laber's articles have appeared in The New York Review of Books, The New York Times and many other newspapers and magazines. She is the co-author of "A Nation is Dying": Afghanistan Under the Soviets. In recognition of her human rights work, she was awarded the Order of Merit by President Vaclav Havel on behalf of the Czech Republic. She is also the recipient of a Research and Writing Grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Laber lives in New York City and in Walton, New York.

From Library Journal:

A homemaker with an academic background in Russian studies and Sovietology, Laber gradually became involved with a developing human rights movement in America during the 1970s and 1980s, going on to become the director of Helsinki Watch, an organization that monitored human rights abuses, especially in the Soviet bloc. Under her guidance, Helsinki Watch broadened its focus to the whole world, eventually merging into one composite organization called Human Rights Watch. Laber's book is first and foremost an autobiographical account of her lifelong devotion to exposing human rights abuses and preventing future abuses, interspersed with references to her personal and family life. This account details her often dangerous trips to Brezhnev's Soviet Union and Eastern European nations and chronicles the events leading to the development of Helsinki Watch and Human Rights Watch. It also contains vivid personal vignettes of Soviet dissidents and torture victims in Turkey and El Salvador. This book offers inspirational testimony to the value of a human rights organization that investigates and publicizes human rights violations with fairness and without regard to political ideology or U.S. foreign policy. For most academic and large public libraries. Jack Forman, San Diego Mesa Coll. Lib.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: PublicAffairs
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1586480146
• ISBN 13: 9781586480141
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416