Human shields a history of people in the line of fire Neve Gordon and Nicola Perugini

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gordon, Neve, 1965- author.

Perugini, Nicola, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Human shield--History.

Human shield.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Edition:

[Updated edition]

Place of Publication:

Oakland, California University of California Press [2026]

Summary:

"From Syrian civilians locked in iron cages to veterans joining peaceful Indigenous water protectors at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, from Sri Lanka to Iraq and from Yemen to the United States, human beings have been used as shields for protection, coercion, or deterrence. Over the past decade, human shields have also appeared with increasing frequency in noncombat contexts such as antinuclear struggles, civil and environmental protests, and even computer games. The phenomenon, however, is by no means a new one. In Human Shields, Neve Gordon and Nicola Perugini describe how human shields have been used in key historical and contemporary moments and across geographical sites. The practice of human shielding corresponds with the history of shifting understandings of what is valued as "human": in the American Civil War and the Franco-German War, only the elite were used as shields, while in later conflicts, hundreds of thousands of women and children and people of color were placed in the crossfire as deterrents. Human Shields demonstrates how this increasing weaponization of human beings has made the position of civilians trapped in theaters of violence more precarious and their lives more expendable"-- Provided by publisher

Contents:

Introduction

Civil war : humane warfare in the United States

Irregulars : the Franco-German War and the legal use of human shields

Settlers : the Second Boer War and the limits of liberal humanitarianism

Reports : World War I and the German use of human screens

Peace army : international pacifism and voluntary shielding during the Sino-Japanese War

Emblem : the Italo-Ethiopian War and Red Cross medical facilities

Nuremberg : Nazi human shielding and the lack of civilian protections

Codification : the Geneva Conventions and the passive civilian

People's war : casting Vietnamese resistance as human shielding

Environment : green human shielding

Resistance : antimilitary activism in Iraq and Palestine

Humanitarian crimes : the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

Manuals : military handbooks as lawmaking tools

Scale : human shielding in Sri Lanka and the principle of proportionality

Hospitals : the use of medical facilities as shields

Proximity : civilians trapped in the midst of the war on ISIS

Info-war : the Gaza wars and social media

Post-human shielding : drone warfare and new surveillance technologies

Women and children : gender, passivity, and human shields

Spectacle : viral images that dehumanize or humanize shields

Computer games : human shields in virtual wars

Protest : civil disobedience as an act of war

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index

"Updated with a new a preface and epilogue"--T.p.

Previous edition: 2020

Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on March 06, 2026)

Other Format:

Print version:

ISBN:

0520432568

9780520432567

OCLC:

1572419914

Publisher Number:

CIPO000335619

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license