March 19, 2024

Jody Williams on Fighting for Darfur

“A masterful feat of original research and reporting, Fighting for Darfur is an authoritative account of the impact of the first sustained citizens’ movement against genocide. With Hamilton’s fierce determination to get beyond self-congratulatory slogans and taken-for-granted assumptions about what is required to save lives at risk, she provides insights that will be invaluable for concerned citizens, human rights advocates and policymakers alike for years and years to come. Essential reading for anyone who wants to help build a better world.”
— Jody Williams, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, founding coordinator of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines

Gareth Evans on Fighting for Darfur

“Rebecca Hamilton captures brilliantly the passion and commitment of the Save Darfur movement, but is also cool and clear-headed about what went wrong. She is especially strong on the ever-present risk for any mass campaign organization of over-simplifying multi-dimensional and ever-changing situations. Complex solutions for complex problems don’t make good bumper stickers, and getting what you wish for doesn’t always address the real issues. This is ‘lessons learned’ writing at its best, compelling reading for policymakers, community activists and anyone anywhere ashamed at our inability to stop mass atrocity crimes, and determined to make the now almost universally accepted responsibility to protect principle a universal reality on the ground.”
— Gareth Evans, Foreign Minister of Australia 1988-96; Co-Chair, International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty 2000-01; and author of The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and for All

Jon Sawyer on Fighting for Darfur

“Fighting for Darfur is the story of missed opportunities and unintended consequences. It’s also a timely call for more realistic and more effective approaches – by policy makers and citizen activists alike—as Sudan enters a turbulent transition that threatens the people of Darfur and beyond.”
–Jon Sawyer, Executive Director, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

Thomas Weiss on Fighting for Darfur

“Is mass revulsion to mass atrocities sufficient to change American foreign policy? Fighting for Darfur tells you why ‘It ain’t that simple’ in a multipolar world with a divided US government. A gripping personal and societal tally of lessons for advocates about how to do better the next time that we face a ‘never-again’ crisis.”
–Thomas G. Weiss, author of What’s Wrong with the United Nations and How To Fix It

Alex de Waal on Fighting for Darfur

“ Moving between American college campuses, the halls of the UN and African Union, the policy battles within Washington DC, the International Criminal Court in The Hague, and Darfur itself, Fighting for Darfur is a vivid account of how a vicious conflict in a forgotten part of Africa came to define an international movement to
stop mass atrocity. Herself one of the earliest and most influential of Darfur activists, Rebecca Hamilton’s book poses tough questions for Darfur advocacy movement and the ambition of a global citizens’ movement against genocide, which it has spawned.”

— Alex de Waal, co-author of Darfur: A Short History of a Long War

Mike Abramowitz on Fighting for Darfur

“Bec Hamilton, an intrepid reporter and researcher, has collected and analyzed an impressive amount of original material about one of the least understood foreign policy stories of the past decade: how the world failed to prevent genocide in Darfur. She shrewdly assesses the role of all the major actors including the Sudanese government, the international community and, most of all, the new citizens movement that pressured officials to stop the killing. Hamilton’s account will be of great interest to anyone who wants to know how his or her voice can make a difference.”
–Mike Abramowitz, director of the genocide prevention program, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

Pre-publication reviews of Fighting for Darfur

“Rebecca Hamilton has catalogued – realistically, soberingly, and most impressively – the successes and shortcomings of the Darfur advocacy movement from its inception to the present. Her work highlights the challenges for citizens and policymakers alike of adapting their actions to mass atrocities less overtly clear than a Holocaust or Rwanda. But above all Hamilton is the model of an ‘upstander,’ one whom raises her voice and acts when people – whether near or far, Western or African – are most in need of help.”
– LGen. the Honourable Roméo A. Dallaire, (Ret’d), Senator

“A masterful feat of original research and reporting, Fighting for Darfur is an authoritative account of the impact of the first sustained citizens’ movement against genocide. With Hamilton’s fierce determination to get beyond self-congratulatory slogans and taken-for-granted assumptions about what is required to save lives at risk, she provides insights that will be invaluable for concerned citizens, human rights advocates and policymakers alike for years and years to come. Essential reading for anyone who wants to help build a better world.”
– Jody Williams, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, founding coordinator of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines

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