Humanity in Crisis

Humanity in Crisis

Author: David Hollenbach, SJ

Publisher: Georgetown University Press

Published: 2019-10-01

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 1626167184

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The major humanitarian crises of recent years are well known: the Shoah, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Rwandan genocide, the massacre in Bosnia, and the tsunami in Southeast Asia, as well as the bloody conflicts in South Sudan, Syria, and Afghanistan. Millions have been killed and many millions more have been driven from their homes; the number of refugees and internally displaced persons has reached record levels. Could these crises have been prevented? Why do they continue to happen? This book seeks to understand how humanity itself is in crisis, and what we can do about it. Hollenbach draws on the values that have shaped major humanitarian initiatives over the past century and a half, such as the commitments of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, as well as the values of diverse religious traditions, including Catholicism, to examine the scope of our responsibilities and practical solutions to these global crises. He also explores the economic and political causes of these tragedies, and uncovers key moral issues for both policy-makers and for practitioners working in humanitarian agencies and faith communities.


Bring Rain

Bring Rain

Author: Sarah Dawn Petrin

Publisher:

Published: 2021-03-22

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 9781949033496

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In times of crisis, the world seems fragile and out of control.How do we keep it all together? Turns out you don't need to be a saint or a superhero to help yourfellow humans. You can be your ordinary self and still do extraordinary things. The simple actionsyou take today can mend and heal a broken world. And right along with it, maybe even your owndisillusioned heart.


The Humanities "Crisis" and the Future of Literary Studies

The Humanities

Author: P. Jay

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2014-07-17

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 1137398035

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Demonstrating that the supposed drawbacks of the humanities are in fact their source of practical value, Jay explores current debates about the role of the humanities in higher education, puts them in historical context, and offers humanists and their supporters concrete ways to explain the practical value of a contemporary humanities education.


The Big Ratchet

The Big Ratchet

Author: Ruth DeFries

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2014-09-09

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0465080936

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How an ordinary mammal manipulated nature to become technologically sophisticated city-dwellers -- and why our history points to an optimistic future in the face of environmental crisis Our species long lived on the edge of starvation. Now we produce enough food for all 7 billion of us to eat nearly 3,000 calories every day. This is such an astonishing thing in the history of life as to verge on the miraculous. The Big Ratchet is the story of how it happened, of the ratchets -- the technologies and innovations, big and small -- that propelled our species from hunters and gatherers on the savannahs of Africa to shoppers in the aisles of the supermarket. The Big Ratchet itself came in the twentieth century, when a range of technologies -- from fossil fuels to scientific plant breeding to nitrogen fertilizers -- combined to nearly quadruple our population in a century, and to grow our food supply even faster. To some, these technologies are a sign of our greatness; to others, of our hubris. MacArthur fellow and Columbia University professor Ruth DeFries argues that the debate is the wrong one to have. Limits do exist, but every limit that has confronted us, we have surpassed. That cycle of crisis and growth is the story of our history; indeed, it is the essence of The Big Ratchet. Understanding it will reveal not just how we reached this point in our history, but how we might survive it.


Stewards of Humanity

Stewards of Humanity

Author: Robert Séamus Macpherson

Publisher: Light Messages Publishing

Published: 2021-08-24

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 1611534151

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When the world turns away from the horrors of war, genocide, famine, and natural disasters, the stewards of humanity run toward the suffering. They stand as a thin line between life and death for thousands of people who will never know their stories. These stewards are neither heroes nor saints. They are ordinary people with ordinary struggles who rise to extraordinary challenges. They are beacons of light in the darkness of humanitarian crisis. With an unflinching view into some of the worst humanitarian crises of our lifetime, author Robert Macpherson, US Marine combat veteran turned aid worker, tells the stories of the men and women who have courageously confronted evil and injustice from Somalia to Bosnia, Rwanda, Iraq and Afghanistan. Throughout his narrative, Robert challenges us to consider our place in humanity and our own role as stewards. “I look for light, and on occasion, find it, but too often it is clouded by the skulls of Murambi. I am reminded by those I've met that all is not lost. Even in the fog of wicked brutality, humans emanate brilliant and cosmic bursts of decency, caring, and kindness. I know this because I continue to meet the women and men who are the keepers of this light.” From Stewards of Humanity Robert Macpherson has been a writer, aid worker, and career infantry officer in the U.S. Marines with service in Vietnam, Iraq, and Somalia. After retiring as a Colonel, he enjoyed a second career with the humanitarian organization CARE, where he directed global risk mitigation for staff and vulnerable populations and led humanitarian response missions worldwide. These efforts often required engaging with foreign governments and the United Nations, but as frequently with non-traditional actors such as the Taliban in Afghanistan, warlords in Sudan and Somalia, local militias, and kidnappers. Stewards of Humanity is his debut book. He lives in Charlotte, NC with his wife, Veronica and service dog, Blue. Those who've read Chasing Chaos by Jessica Alexander, Ghosts of the Tsunami by Richard Lloyd Perry, and Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder will savor the rich, complex narratives in Stewards of Humanity.


Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity

Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity

Author: William I. Robinson

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-07-28

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1316062554

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This exciting new study provides an original and provocative exposé of the crisis of global capitalism in its multiple dimensions - economic, political, social, ecological, military, and cultural. Building on his earlier works on globalization, William I. Robinson discusses the nature of the new global capitalism, the rise of a globalized production and financial system, a transnational capitalist class, and a transnational state and warns of the rise of a global police state to contain the explosive contradictions of a global capitalist system that is crisis-ridden and out of control. Robinson concludes with an exploration of how diverse social and political forces are responding to the crisis and alternative scenarios for the future.


Humanitarianism and the Quantification of Human Needs

Humanitarianism and the Quantification of Human Needs

Author: Joël Glasman

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-01-06

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 1000762599

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This book provides a historical inquiry into the quantification of needs in humanitarian assistance. Needs are increasingly seen as the lowest common denominator of humanity. Standard definitions of basic needs, however, set a minimalist version of humanity – both in the sense that they are narrow in what they compare, and that they set a low bar for satisfaction. The book argues that we cannot understand humanitarian governance if we do not understand how humanitarian agencies made human suffering commensurable across borders in the first place. The book identifies four basic elements of needs: As a concept, as a system of classification and triage, as a material apparatus, and as a set of standards. Drawing on a range of archival sources, including the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), and the Sphere Project, the book traces the concept of needs from its emergence in the 1960s right through to the present day, and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s call for “evidence-based humanitarianism.” Finally, the book assesses how the international governmentality of needs has played out in a recent humanitarian crisis, drawing on field research on Central African refugees in the Cameroonian borderland in 2014–2016. This important historical inquiry into the universal nature of human suffering will be an important read for humanitarian researchers and practitioners, as well as readers with an interest in international history and development.


Humanity

Humanity

Author: Ai Weiwei

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2018-04-24

Total Pages: 169

ISBN-13: 1400890349

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Writings on human life and the refugee crisis by the most important political artist of our time Ai Weiwei (b. 1957) is widely known as an artist across media: sculpture, installation, photography, performance, and architecture. He is also one of the world's most important artist-activists and a powerful documentary filmmaker. His work and art call attention to attacks on democracy and free speech, abuses of human rights, and human displacement--often on an epic, international scale. This collection of quotations demonstrates the range of Ai Weiwei's thinking on humanity and mass migration, issues that have occupied him for decades. Selected from articles, interviews, and conversations, Ai Weiwei's words speak to the profound urgency of the global refugee crisis, the resilience and vulnerability of the human condition, and the role of art in providing a voice for the voiceless. Select quotations from the book: "This problem has such a long history, a human history. We are all refugees somehow, somewhere, and at some moment." "Allowing borders to determine your thinking is incompatible with the modern era." "Art is about aesthetics, about morals, about our beliefs in humanity. Without that there is simply no art." "I don't care what all people think. My work belongs to the people who have no voice."


Human Flow

Human Flow

Author: Ai Weiwei

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2020-12

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 0691207046

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A powerful portrait of the greatest humanitarian emergency of our time, from the director of Human Flow In the course of making Human Flow, his epic feature documentary about the global refugee crisis, the artist Ai Weiwei and his collaborators interviewed more than 600 refugees and aid workers in twenty-three countries around the world. A handful of those interviews were included in the film. This book presents one hundred of these conversations in their entirety, providing compelling first-person stories of the lives of refugees. Speaking in their own words, refugees give voice to their experiences of migrating across borders, living in refugee camps for months or years, and struggling to rebuild their lives in unfamiliar and uncertain surroundings. They talk about the dire circumstances that drove them to migrate, whether war, famine, or persecution; the hardships they face; and their hopes and fears for the future. In the words of Atiq, an Afghan in his early twenties staying at a refugee camp in Greece, "Nobody in the world wants to leave his country. But there's no way for people to live in that place." Complete with photographs taken by Ai Weiwei while filming Human Flow, this book provides a powerful and moving account of the most urgent humanitarian crisis of our time.


Humanity in Crisis

Humanity in Crisis

Author: David Hollenbach, SJ

Publisher: Georgetown University Press

Published: 2019-10-01

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 1626167192

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The major humanitarian crises of recent years are well known: the Shoah, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Rwandan genocide, the massacre in Bosnia, and the tsunami in Southeast Asia, as well as the bloody conflicts in South Sudan, Syria, and Afghanistan. Millions have been killed and many millions more have been driven from their homes; the number of refugees and internally displaced persons has reached record levels. Could these crises have been prevented? Why do they continue to happen? This book seeks to understand how humanity itself is in crisis, and what we can do about it. Hollenbach draws on the values that have shaped major humanitarian initiatives over the past century and a half, such as the commitments of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, as well as the values of diverse religious traditions, including Catholicism, to examine the scope of our responsibilities and practical solutions to these global crises. He also explores the economic and political causes of these tragedies, and uncovers key moral issues for both policy-makers and for practitioners working in humanitarian agencies and faith communities.