East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity is a 2016 book by Philippe Sands that examines the lives of two Jewish lawyers, Hersch Lauterpacht and Raphael Lemkin, born within three years of each other and students in the same city on the eastern outskirts of Europe, Lviv, who created the legal concepts of crimes against humanity and genocide.[1] It is a memoir and history of the origins of international criminal law in the aftermath of the Second World War.[2][3][4]
 First US edition (publ. Knopf) | |
| Author | Philippe Sands |
|---|---|
| ISBN | 9780385350716 |
Reviews
editDaniel Finkelstein in The Times described as "A magnificent book. A work of great brilliance. There is narrative sweep and intellectual grip. Everything that happens is inevitable and yet comes as a surprise. I was moved to anger and to pity. In places I gasped, in places I wept. I wanted to reach the end. I couldn't wait to reach the end. And then when I got there I didn't want to be at the end."[5]
Caroline Moorehead, writing for Literary Review, praised Sands as a "voracious researcher", writing: "it is impossible not to enjoy his exuberant pleasure in what he calls the 'muck of evidence'. No possible fruitful line of enquiry is passed over."[6]
John le Carré called it: "A monumental achievement: profoundly personal, told with love, anger and great precision."[7]
Dominic Sandbrook in The Sunday Times wrote: "Supremely gripping. Sands has produced something extraordinary. Written with novelistic skill, its prose effortlessly poised, its tone perfectly judged, his book teems with life, from the bustling streets of Habsburg Lviv to the high drama of the Nuremberg trials. One of the most gripping and powerful books imaginable."[8]
Prizes
edit- The Baillie Gifford Prize, 2016[9]
- Best History Books of the Year, The Guardian, 2016[10]
- The Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Prize, 2017[11]
- Non-fiction Book of the Year at the British Book Awards, 2017[12]
- "Baron Jean-Charles Velge" Prize of the International Chair of the History of the Second World War at the ULB (Free University of Brussels) 2019[13]
Notes
edit- ^ Douglas, Lawrence (16 September 2016). "The birth of genocide - Twentieth-century history & later". TLS. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
- ^ "East West Street by Philippe Sands: 9780525433729 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books". PenguinRandomhouse.com. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
- ^ Swart, Mia (1 September 2018). "Philippe Sands, East West Street: On the Origins of 'Genocide' and 'Crimes Against Humanity'". Journal of International Criminal Justice. 16 (4): 959–961. doi:10.1093/jicj/mqy058. ISSN 1478-1387.
- ^ Mazower, Mark (20 May 2016). "'East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity', by Philippe Sands". Financial Times. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
- ^ Finkelstein, Daniel (28 May 2016). "Book of the week: East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity by Philippe Sands". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
- ^ Moorehead, Caroline (May 2016). "Justice Defined". Literary Review. Retrieved 1 March 2023.
- ^ Sands, Philippe (13 July 2018). East West Street. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 9781474601917.
- ^ Sandbrook, Dominic (12 June 2016). "Books: East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity by Philippe Sands". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
- ^ Flood, Alison; Sian Cain (15 November 2016). "Philippe Sands wins the 2016 Baillie Gifford prize for nonfiction". The Guardian. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
- ^ Horspool, David (1 December 2016). "The best history books of 2016". The Guardian. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
- ^ UCL (24 February 2017). "Professor Philippe Sands QC wins 2017 Jewish Quarterly Wingate Prize". UCL Faculty of Laws. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
- ^ UCL (9 May 2017). "Professor Philippe Sands QC wins Non Fiction: Narrative Book of the Year at British Book Awards". UCL Faculty of Laws. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
- ^ "ULB". www.ulb.be. 15 January 2019. Retrieved 27 November 2023.
 | This article about a book on politics of European countries is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |