The Death of Politics: France Under Mitterand

Politics & Social Sciences

LAUGHLAND, JOHN

Politics & Government

Viking Pr

-- A passionate critique of Milosevic's trial and the PR machine at the heart of international justice -- 'Study this story. . . . The truth is hard to find, but in John Laughland we are fortunate to have a man blessed with the freedom to seek all facts,

Travesty: The Trial of Slobodan Milosevic and the Corruption of International Justice

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Pluto Press

In 2006, Slobodan Milosevic died in prison in the Hague during a four-year marathon trial for war crimes. John Laughland was one of the last Western journalists to meet with him. Laughland had followed the trial from its beginning and wrote extensively on it in the Guardian and the Spectator, challenging the legitimacy of the Yugoslav Tribunal and the hypocrisy of "international justice."
In this short book, Laughland gives a full account of the trial---the longest trial in history---from the moment the indictment was issued at the height of NATO's attack on Yugoslavia to the day of Milosevic's mysterious death in custody. "International justice" is supposed to hold war criminals to account, but---as the trials of both Milosevic and Saddam Hussein show---the indictments are politically motivated and the judicial procedures are irredeemably corrupt. Laughland argues that international justice is an impossible dream and that such show trials are little more than propaganda exercises designed to distract attention from the war crimes committed by Western states.

Clark, Ramsey

The author of this text argues that an ideology is sweeping Europe and the world which threatens democracy and the rule of law. The post-national ideology, which posits that nation-states are no longer capable of running their own affairs in a modern, interdependent economy, is shown to confuse the constitution of a state with the power of its government, and to ignore the importance of the sense of community essential to democratic debate.

Tainted Source

Business & Money

Economics

Little, Brown Book Group

Schelling versus Hegel

In tracing Friedrich von Schelling's long philosophical development, John Laughland examines in particular his disentanglement from German idealism and his reaction, later in life, against Hegel. He argues that this story has relevance beyond the facts themselves and that it explains much about the direction philosophy took in the century between the French Revolution and the rise of Communism. Schelling's development turned principally on the related questions of human liberty and the creation. Following a sharp disagreement with his old friend Hegel over the Phenomenology in 1807, Schelling wrote a short but brilliant essay on human freedom in 1809, after which he never published another word. In the remaining decades of his life (d. 1854) Schelling developed in an increasingly conservative and Christian direction, preoccupied with the relationship between Christianity and metaphysics. In numerous lectures and unpublished works, he attacked what he saw as the hubris and artificiality of Hegelian rationalism. However the path against which Schelling warned was the one which philosophy finally took. Schelling was determined to show how philosophy (especially ontology) explained and was explained by Christianity, and that both had been damaged by modern rationalism. But Hegel’s Marxist epigones who attended his later lectures scoffed and Hegelianism triumphed. This is an elegantly written and engaging study in the history of ideas of a philosopher on the losing side.

Schelling versus Hegel: From German Idealism to Christian Metaphysics

History

Europe

Routledge

In tracing Friedrich von Schelling's long philosophical development, John Laughland examines in particular his disentanglement from German idealism and his reaction, later in life, against Hegel. He argues that this story has relevance beyond the facts themselves and that it explains much about the direction philosophy took in the century between the French Revolution and the rise of Communism. Schelling's development turned principally on the related questions of human liberty and the creation. Following a sharp disagreement with his old friend Hegel over the Phenomenology in 1807, Schelling wrote a short but brilliant essay on human freedom in 1809, after which he never published another word. In the remaining decades of his life (d. 1854) Schelling developed in an increasingly conservative and Christian direction, preoccupied with the relationship between Christianity and metaphysics. In numerous lectures and unpublished works, he attacked what he saw as the hubris and artificiality of Hegelian rationalism. However the path against which Schelling warned was the one which philosophy finally took. Schelling was determined to show how philosophy (especially ontology) explained and was explained by Christianity, and that both had been damaged by modern rationalism. But Hegel’s Marxist epigones who attended his later lectures scoffed and Hegelianism triumphed. This is an elegantly written and engaging study in the history of ideas of a philosopher on the losing side.

Historical Study & Educational Resources

Octav Botnar - A Life

OMC Investments Limited

A History of Political Trials: From Charles I to Saddam Hussein (The Past in the Present)

Peter Lang Oxford

The modern use of international tribunals to try heads of state for genocide and crimes against humanity is often considered a positive development. Many people think that the establishment of special courts to prosecute notorious dictators represents a triumph of law over impunity. In A History of Political Trials, John Laughland takes a very different and controversial view. He shows that trials of heads of state are in fact not new, and that previous trials throughout history have themselves violated the law and due process. It is the historical account which carries the argument. By examining trials of heads of state and government throughout history – figures as different as Charles I, Louis XVI, Erich Honecker, and Saddam Hussein – Laughland shows that modern trials of heads of state have ugly historical precedents. In their different ways, all the trials he describes were marked by arbitrariness and injustice, and many were gross exercises in hypocrisy. Political trials, he finds, are only the continuation of war by other means. With short and easy chapters, but the fruit of formidable erudition and wide reading, this book will force the general reader to re-examine prevailing opinions of this subject.

A History of Political Trials: From Charles I to Saddam Hussein (Peter Lang Ltd.)

Peter Lang Ltd, International Academic Publishers

The modern use of international tribunals to try heads of state for genocide and crimes against humanity is often considered a positive development. Many people think that the establishment of special courts to prosecute notorious dictators represents a triumph of law over impunity. In A History of Political Trials, John Laughland takes a very different and controversial view. He shows that trials of heads of state are in fact not new, and that previous trials throughout history have themselves violated the law and due process. It is the historical account which carries the argument. By examining trials of heads of state and government throughout history – figures as different as Charles I, Louis XVI, Erich Honecker, Saddam Hussein and Charles Taylor – Laughland shows that modern trials of heads of state have ugly historical precedents. In their different ways, all the trials he describes were marked by arbitrariness and injustice, and many were gross exercises in hypocrisy. Political trials, he finds, are only the continuation of war by other means. With short and easy chapters, but the fruit of formidable erudition and wide reading, this book will force the general reader to re-examine prevailing opinions on this subject.

A History of Political Trials: From Charles I to Charles Taylor

Military

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