{"product_id":"theater-of-cruelty-isbn-9781590177778","title":"Theater of Cruelty","description":"Winner of the PEN\/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIan Buruma is fascinated, he writes, “by what makes the human species behave atrociously.” In \u003ci\u003eTheater of Cruelty \u003c\/i\u003ethe acclaimed author of \u003ci\u003eThe Wages of Guilt\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eYear Zero: A History of 1945 \u003c\/i\u003eonce   again turns to World War II to explore that question—to the Nazi   occupation of Paris, the Allied bombing of German cities, the   international controversies over Anne Frank’s diaries, Japan’s   militarist intellectuals and its kamikaze pilots. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne way that   people respond to power and cruelty, Buruma argues, is through art, and   the art that most interests him reveals the dark impulses beneath the   veneer of civilized behavior. This is what draws him to German and   Japanese artists such as Max Beckmann, George Grosz, Ernst Ludwig   Kirchner, Mishima Yukio, and Yokoo Tadanori, as well as to filmmakers   such as Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Kurosawa Kiyoshi, and   Hans-Jürgen Syberberg. All were affected by fascism and its terrible   consequences; all “looked into the abyss and made art of what they saw.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhether   he is writing in this wide-ranging collection about war, artists, or   film—or about David Bowie’s music, R. Crumb’s drawings, the Palestinians   of the West Bank, or Asian theme parks—Ian Buruma brings sympathetic   historical insight and shrewd aesthetic judgment to understanding the   diverse ways that people deal with violence and cruelty in life and in   art.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eTheater of Cruelty\u003c\/i\u003e includes eight pages of color and black \u0026amp; white images.“Buruma is enthusiastic and skeptical and unapologetic about his diverse passions…Though he writes of those who leapt before they looked, as a critic, Buruma is always firmly grounded.\" —\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Able to write with apparent ease and grace about a wide variety of subjects...Buruma displays a generosity of spirit that is often absent in the work of other cultural critics.... The author generally focuses on strengths of artistic works and maintains a hopeful view of history, though he seems to find it increasingly hard to do so. A unique intelligence encounters the uniqueness of art and culture.” —\u003ci\u003eKirkus\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e  \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e(starred review)\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePraise for Ian Buruma's most recent work, \u003ci\u003eYear Zero\u003c\/i\u003e:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eYear Zero \u003c\/i\u003ehas a down-to-earth grandeur. Through an array of brief, evocative human portraits and poignant descriptions of events around the globe he hints, rather than going into numbing detail or philosophical discourse, at the dimensions of suffering, the depth of moral confusion and in the end the nascent hope that 1945 entailed.” —T\u003ci\u003ehe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[In \u003ci\u003eMurder in Amsterdam\u003c\/i\u003e], Ian Buruma addresses questions of political philosophy, moral accountability and mass psychology in the most rigorous possible way: journalistically...deftly [combining] interviewing and reflection.” —\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Mr. Buruma is a journalist who reports all sides: those of the survivors, the veterans, the politicians, the left-wing pacifists and right-wing nationalists, the judges and the judged. \u003ci\u003eThe Wages of Guilt\u003c\/i\u003e is subtitled ‘Memories of War in Germany and Japan.’ But it is really far more, an exploration of the many and varied ways in which cataclysm has shaped national identity in our century.” —\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \"As generations with few memories of the second world war come of age in Europe and Asia, this luminous book will remind them of the importance of what Buruma terms 'mental surgeons', the politicians and warriors who reconstructed two continents left in rubble.\" --\u003ci\u003eThe Financial Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \"Ian Buruma's wonderful book is about a time, immediately after the end of the war, which has somehow fallen between the cracks of history, and which the author has now devastatingly brought to light...This book is a compelling and astounding addition to the literature of the war, reminding us, as Buruma himself writes, 'Never Again'.\" --\u003ci\u003eThe Daily Mail\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \"Mr. Buruma's analysis is correct. Many of the consequences of victory were grim. Normality returned in the decades that followed thanks to the grit and determination of those who pushed on past the horrors of 1945. Mr. Buruma's book honours their efforts.\" --The Economist \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \"A stirring account of the year in which the world woke up to the horror of what had just occurred and--while some new horrors were being committed--began to reflect on how to make sure that it never happens again.\" --The New York Review of Books\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003ePraise for Buruma’s \u003ci\u003eThe Wages of Guilt\u003c\/i\u003e:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Mr. Buruma is a journalist who reports all sides: those of the survivors, the veterans, the politicians, the left-wing pacifists and right-wing nationalists, the judges and the judged. \u003ci\u003eThe Wages of Guilt\u003c\/i\u003e is subtitled 'Memories of War in Germany and Japan.' But it is really far more, an exploration of the many and varied ways in which cataclysm has shaped national identity in our century.\" --\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \"This thought-provoking inquiry has a powerful theme: people must be held accountable for the society in which they live.\" --\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"...absorbing and important...\" --\u003ci\u003eForeign Affairs\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \"As in \u003ci\u003eGod's Dust\u003c\/i\u003e (1989), Buruma takes a psychological and cultural voyage into nationalism, guilt, and self-delusion -- in this case, of two of WW II's defeated Axis powers....The book ranges wide and deep in its search for disparate voices in both [German and Japanese] societies: editors, intellectuals, writers, artists, activists. Buruma's easy familiarity with Japan enables him to dig under the skin of national attitudes in a way that is rare for a Western commentator....All in all, a thoughtful, patiently assembled book that probes carefully and with moral toughness into precisely those painful truths.\" --\u003ci\u003eKirkus Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eIan Buruma\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of many books, including \u003ci\u003eThe Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan\u003c\/i\u003e (1995), \u003ci\u003eThe Missionary and the Libertine: Love and War in East and West \u003c\/i\u003e(1996), \u003ci\u003eMurder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance\u003c\/i\u003e (2006), and \u003ci\u003eYear Zero: A History of 1945\u003c\/i\u003e (2013). He is the Paul W. Williams Professor of Human Rights and Journalism at Bard and a regular contributor to \u003ci\u003eThe New York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e, among other publications.","brand":"New York Review Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303113937125,"sku":"NP9781590177778","price":29.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781590177778.jpg?v=1767742375","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/theater-of-cruelty-isbn-9781590177778","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}