"This book is an exemplary, nuanced demonstration of why representations of human rights violations are important and how mass atrocities are framed or “socially constructed”—indeed, the word “representations” does an enormous amount of work in this book... Overall, this is an important study that makes concrete complex con- structions and representations of mass violence."—American Journal of Sociology
“A meticulous, wide-ranging attempt to make sense of different ways of thinking about the violence that flares up in human communities in different times and places. ... A careful study.”—Contemporary Sociology
"Perhaps the most comprehensive and empirically detailed analysis of competing institutional and mainstream representations of mass violence and genocide in Darfur."—State Crime Journal
"This book is a pathbreaking examination of the multiple international narratives around Darfur by human rights advocates, humanitarians, journalists, and diplomats. It is thorough and rigorous—an essential contribution to the scholarship."—Alex de Waal, Executive Director, World Peace Foundation at the Fletcher School, Tufts University
"Darfur is the modern genocide that refuses to end, and this volume gives this mass atrocity the attention it deserves. It does so in highly original ways, including an unprecedented global analysis of media coverage, activism, and advocacy. The author’s familiarity with European and North American settings gives him a unique perspective from which to undertake this massive study."—John Hagan, John D. MacArthur Professor of Sociology and Law at Northwestern University and Co-Director of the Center on Law and Globalization at the American Bar Foundation in Chicago
"Joachim Savelsberg’s use of secondary material and his engagement with the critics of the human rights regime in general and those who have studied Sudan in particular, coupled with his primary analysis of media representations and their national variations (and similarities), provides a perspective that is more encompassing than anything I am aware of."—Daniel Levy, Professor of Sociology at Stony Brook University
"A comprehensive survey of the range of knowledge forms and institutionalized interests that have contributed to the construction of Darfur as a signification of humanitarian crisis, human rights violation, and contemporary genocide."—Dylan Rodríguez, Professor and Chair, Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California Riverside