I You We Them: Revealing the desk killers, perpetrators of crimes against humanity

(Paperback)

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A landmark historical investigation into crimes against humanity and the nature of evil that is over two decades in the making. A WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE WORK OF NON-FICTION A SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR 'Meticulous, clinical and sobering, a shockingly important and incisive book' David Olusoga Vast and revelatory, Dan Gretton's I You We Them is an unprecedented study of the perpetrators of crimes against humanity- the 'desk killers' who ordered and directed some of the worst atrocities of the modern era. From Albert Speer's complicity in Nazi barbarism to cases of ecocide and the deaths of activists, Gretton shines a light on the figures 'who, by giving orders, use paper or a phone or a computer to kill, instead of a gun.' Over the past twenty years, Gretton has interviewed survivors and perpetrators, and pored over archives and thousands of pages of testimony. His remarkable insight into the psychology of the desk killers is deepened by the intimate journey he travels with his readers.

Reviews

Meticulous, clinical and sobering, a shockingly important and incisive book. -- David Olusoga
I You We Them is a uniquely gripping journey around the landscapes of mass murder. -- Phillipe Sands, author of East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes against Humanity
This remarkably powerful book entails a dogged and worldwide pursuit of 'the desk-killer', the government functionary or business executive whose decisions so often cost human lives. The model of this remote-control assassin is Hitler's architect Albert Speer, but the German story is subsumed in a far more compelling and modern investigation of the collective amnesia which so often operates in the telling of national histories, including our own. -- Mark Cocker * Spectator, Books of the Year *
Not since Gitta Serenys vast script of Into That Darkness arrived on my desk have I read anything so disturbing as the early draft of Dan Grettons book. I was shaken to the core by his brilliant treatment of the Wannsee meeting The book seemed to be humming with life... much more alive than anything Ive read for ages... Im certainly grateful for having been given the chance to read this amazing work.
Great books never occur out of a desire for greatness, but often out of a possessed persistence in the face of a chosen and immensely difficult task. This is such a book. In it, through it, a century speaks to us - not with the thunderous voice of History, but in the intimate voice of a sequence of confessions.

Author Bio

Dan Gretton is a writer, activist and teacher. In 1983 he co-founded the pioneering political arts organisation Platform, in Cambridge, where he studied English literature. As well as working with Platform over many years on the human rights and environmental impacts of corporations, he has also developed radical initiatives in adult education and has lectured internationally on the subject of the 'desk killer'. After more than a decade of research, aided by a major award from the Lannan Foundation, he embarked on the writing of I You We Them. He currently divides his time between north-west Wales and east London, where he shares his garden with a family of foxes.