Thinking in an Emergency (Amnesty International Global Ethics Series) Review

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Thinking in an Emergency (Amnesty International Global Ethics Series) ReviewI purchased this book thinking that it would provide insight into how decisions are made in emergency situations. It does do that, to a certain extent, but the main thesis of the book is actually quite different than the title alone might suggest.
This book is focused on is explaining how modern societies, in particular the eight nuclear weapons states (the U.S. plus seven others) have come to live in a state of "chronic emergency", and "with more and more powers ceded to the countries president or prime minister", rather than being decided through deliberation involving either the legislature or the public, or both.
Right off the bat, the book challenged my view of our democracy, stating that we in fact do not any longer have a full democracy because of the extent to which power has been delegated by statute to the President. It cites as examples, from recent years, the decisions to sanction torture, detention without charge, and decisions involving use of our military without a formal declaration of war.
These are all actions we are familiar with and have lived through, but the observation that these represent a real shift away from true democratic decision making is thought provoking. For me it was stunning and I am still absorbing the whole shift in paradigm that results once you absorb the authors arguments.
The book is strongly pro democracy and anti nuclear weapons, and as the reviewer in "Times Higher Education" has pointed out, Scarry writes from a deeply humanitarian standpoint. It is not overly discouraging in how it presents our countries present situation but it does make it clear that we need to make changes in America if we want to check and hopefully reverse this shift that has been moving us more and more to a non-democratic rule. With our preoccupation today on economic matters, this is not what people want to be thinking about, but the long term implications are very important and serious.
There is also a very interesting interview with the author, on the Boston Review website, discussing the book and posted on July 13, 2011.
My discovery of this book has also made me aware of the Amnesty International Global Ethics Series, of which this is the first volume. To date there has been one other book published (Can Intervention Work?), one scheduled for publication later this year (Universal Rights Down to Earth), one for release February, 2012 (The Human Right to Health), with further books by John Broome, Sheila Jasanoff, Martha Minow, Philip Pettit, and John Ruggie planned.
I recommend this book very highly.
Thinking in an Emergency (Amnesty International Global Ethics Series) Overview

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