A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery by Free Press Title: A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery

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A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery by Free Press

good intentions

Brooklyn's Ben Skinner deserves a lot of credit for doing the legwork on this interesting book, but his youthful, jaunty tone wears on one, and his insistence on viewing slavery as existing outside the context of other forms of exploitation gives this book a kind of narrowness of scope that reduces its importance. After a while, you may find yourself skimming, but if you know someone who is completely in the dark about the existence of slavery in the modern world you could do worse than to give them this book.
A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery by Free Press

Upsetting, but important

This is a short, concise, and in-your-face explanation of the state of slavery in the world today. It's shocking and upsetting, but it simply needs to be read by the world's policy-makers. I personally had no idea that these inhumane acts take place in modern society. E. Benjamin Skinner is an author I will certainly read again.
A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery by Free Press

Slavery still exists today

Skinner writes a riveting tale of the human slavery and trafficking. The author probes the inner workings of the sex slave industry whilst pushing for equal recognition of debt bondage slave. The story is a sad one, but there are heroes out there, such as John Miller, the U.S. czar on human trafficking who devoted his life to fighting against it. One troubling aspect in this book, is that recognition of this problem seems to be mostly limited to small NGOs and organized religious groups. It is time to bring this issue more out in the open.
A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery by Free Press

Great Book so Far

I am reading this book currently and it is a great look at the trade. It is very honest and open.
A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery by Free Press

Edgy and Haunting

This edgy, unflinching study of slavery plunges us into the bowels of countries I wouldn't want to fly over, let alone visit. As he calmly haggles down the price of human beings with grinning men and women, the author plays out roles that professional actors might flinch at. Of course for Skinner, there must have been no rehearsals, no second takes. It must have been raw. And yet somehow he still manages to weave in elegant and even beautiful prose - the evocative phrase describing India's enslaved `human jackhammers' is now permanently lodged in my lexicon - and even a few comic moments to relieve our tension. This book has been rightly compared with two brilliant, prize-winning books on genocide, and yet in some ways the author lures us farther and further into strange new territory. He explores the human nature and contours of an evil that has more shades of grey and more intimacy than genocide, an evil that appears to be expanding into new shadows and metastasizing like the hydra he describes at one point, rather than contracting under sunlight of exposure. It also, I think, requires a different kind of discipline: one has to interview the living victims and perpetrators of slavery as evil unfolds in the present, rather than probe unreliable memories to reconstruct horrific events of the past. Skinner's dialogues with hideous people leave us at the end of his book, sitting on the edge of our comfortable sofas, having silent conversations with our conscience, haunted in the best possible way.
A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery by Free Press

Product Description

To be a moral witness is perhaps the highest calling of journalism, and in this unforgettable, highly readable account of contemporary slavery, author Benjamin Skinner travels around the globe to personally tell stories that need to be told -- and heard.

As Samantha Power and Philip Gourevitch did for genocide, Skinner has now done for modern-day slavery. With years of reporting in such places as Haiti, Sudan, India, Eastern Europe, The Netherlands, and, yes, even suburban America, he has produced a vivid testament and moving reportage on one of the great evils of our time.

There are more slaves in the world today than at any time in history. After spending four years visiting a dozen countries where slavery flourishes, Skinner tells the story, in gripping narrative style, of individuals who live in slavery, those who have escaped from bondage, those who own or traffic in slaves, and the mixed political motives of those who seek to combat the crime.

Skinner infiltrates trafficking networks and slave sales on five continents, exposing a modern flesh trade never before portrayed in such proximity. From mega-harems in Dubai to illicit brothels in Bucharest, from slave quarries in India to child markets in Haiti, he explores the underside of a world we scarcely recognize as our own and lays bare a parallel universe where human beings are bought, sold, used, and discarded. He travels from the White House to war zones and immerses us in the political and flesh-and-blood battles on the front lines of the unheralded new abolitionist movement.

At the heart of the story are the slaves themselves. Their stories are heartbreaking but, in the midst of tragedy, readers discover a quiet dignity that leads some slaves to resist and aspire to freedom. Despite being abandoned by the international community, despite suffering a crime so monstrous as to strip their awareness of their own humanity, somehow, some enslaved men regain their dignity, some enslaved women learn to trust men, and some enslaved children manage to be kids. Skinner bears witness for them, and for the millions who are held in the shadows.

In so doing, he has written one of the most morally courageous books of our time, one that will long linger in the conscience of all who encounter it, and one that -- just perhaps -- may move the world to constructive action.


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