{"word_count": 222, "character_count": 1511}
I am happy to let you know that my book “Human Rights in the Shadow of Colonial Violence. The Wars of Independence in Kenya and Algeria” has been recently published by The University of Pennsylvanian Press (for more details see: http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15084.html).My book, the English translation of my dissertation “Menschenrechte im Schatten kolonialer Gewalt” (originally published in German by Oldenbourg in 2009), analyzes the relationship between the emergence of human rights concepts after 1945 and the increasing radicalization of colonial violence. Based on previously inaccessible material from the archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations Human Rights Commission, this comparative study uses the Mau Mau War (1952–1956) and the Algerian War (1954–1962) as case studies to examine the policies of two major imperial powers, Britain and France. By analyzing the colonial states of emergency, counterinsurgency strategy, and the significance of humanitarian international law in both conflicts I show that the crimes on the part of Western powers that promoted human rights in other areas of the world were diametrically opposed to the growing global acceptance of freedom, equality, self-determination, and universal rights. In my book I want to demonstrate the mutually impacting histories of international human rights and decolonization.I hope my book will find a broad international readership and I am looking forward to reactions and comments.