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Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Clifton Crais
Affiliation:
Emory University, Atlanta
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Summary

To witness kith and kin dying of poverty is the worst humiliation. We are at our weakest, at our most powerless and vulnerable, when we cannot help those for whom we care attain the food, water, and shelter necessary for survival. There is a sense of injustice and of abject failure when children perish from malnutrition and disease, or when the old, the sick, and the innocent are left behind on roads and paths leading away from epochal violence and crisis.

A global epidemic of violence and poverty marks the contemporary world. Formal wars between nation-states have declined, but civil conflict, sectarian bloodletting, and other forms of violence have been increasing, from suicide bombing and narco-terrorism to rape as an instrument of war. At the beginning of the new millennium, more than forty-five armed conflicts were being waged, many of them in Africa, where some wars have been grinding on for four decades or more. More generally, the past two centuries have witnessed violence that is so nearly unimaginable that it has strained our very capacity to describe and understand a world in which so many have died.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

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  • Introduction
  • Clifton Crais, Emory University, Atlanta
  • Book: Poverty, War, and Violence in South Africa
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139005050.002
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  • Introduction
  • Clifton Crais, Emory University, Atlanta
  • Book: Poverty, War, and Violence in South Africa
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139005050.002
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Clifton Crais, Emory University, Atlanta
  • Book: Poverty, War, and Violence in South Africa
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139005050.002
Available formats
×