States of Denial
By Stanley Cohen

States of Denial is the first comprehensive study of both the personal and
political ways in which uncomfortable realities are avoided and evaded. It
ranges from clinical studies of depression, to media images of suffering, to
explanations of the 'passive bystander' and 'compassion fatigue'. The book
shows how organized atrocities - the Holocaust and other genocides, torture,
and political massacres - are denied by perpetrators and by bystanders,
those who stand by and do nothing.

Blocking out, turning a blind eye, shutting off, not wanting to know,
wearing blinkers, seeing what we want to see ... these are all expressions
of 'denial'. Alcoholics who refuse to recognize their condition, people who
brush aside suspicions of their partner's infidelity, the wife who doesn't
notice that her husband is abusing their daughter - are supposedly 'in
denial'. Governments deny their responsibility for atrocities, and plan them
to achieve 'maximum deniability'. Truth Commissions try to overcome the
suppression and denial of past horrors. Bystander nations deny their
responsibility to intervene.

Do these phenomena have anything in common? When we deny, are we aware of
what we are doing or is this an unconscious defense mechanism to protect us
from unwelcome truths? Can there be cultures of denial? How do organizations
like Amnesty and Oxfam try to overcome the public's apparent indifference to
distant suffering and cruelty? Is denial always so bad - or do we need
positive illusions to retain our sanity?

-Winner of the American Society of Criminology's International Division
Award for outstanding publication of 2000-2001.

'The sociologist Stanley Cohen, who spent many years in Israel before
continuing his academic work in Britain, offers one key to why wars happen,
why peace settlements do not take, and why terrible conflicts are ignored or
dealt with ineffectively. His new book stresses how central denial is in
conflict, indeed in all human life. The concept is well known, but Cohen's
careful building up of the detail of denial in its many forms is truly
illuminating. He leads the reader to the conclusion that it is denial that
is "normal" and an ability to see the truth and act accordingly which is
rare, whether in individuals or in governments.'
--Martin Woolacott, The Guardian

'This is a pathbreaking and comprehensive study of how political actors,
civic groups, and private citizens manage to know and not know about the
atrocity and suffering around them, a rare book whose practical value for
activists and officials is as great as its contribution to scholarship.'
--Eric Klinenberg, Le Monde Diplomatique

February 2001
360 pages - paperback/hardcover
ISBN: 0745623921
List Price: $29.95; $62.95

Ordering Information:

To order States of denial, please go to:
http://www.blackwellpub.com/asp/book.asp?ref=0745616577 or call Blackwell
Publishing at 1- 800-216-2522.

Thank you,
Thu Yen Mac
Blackwell Publishing, Boston, MA - Oxford, UK

Please feel free to forward to other colleagues who would find this
interesting.