PHILIPPE SANDS is an international lawyer and a professor of law at University College London. He is the author of Lawless World and Torture Team and is a frequent commentator on CNN and the BBC World Service. Sands lectures around the world and has taught at New York University and been a visiting professor at the University of Toronto, the University of Melbourne, and the Université de Paris I (Sorbonne). In 2003 he was appointed a Queen's Counsel. He lives in London, England.
Acclaim for Philippe Sands'
EAST WEST STREET "An indispensable book."
--Jack Fischel, Hadassah Magazine "Remarkable sleuthing."
--Christopher R. Browning, The New York Review "An intimate and
important tale . . . vivid . . . engaging . . . A kind of
mystery-solving journey . . . remarkable."
--John Tirman, The Washington Post "A tour de force . . .
penetrating . . . A pillar of the emerging genre of
third-generation investigation into the legacy of the European
Jewish apocalypse . . . This is a history that is both personal and
universal . . . Equal parts legal scholarship, memoir and multitude
of mysteries, told with admirable suspense and elocution . . . Here
we find both the detail of concepts and the detail of personal
lives and geographies . . . Sands acts as archivist and
archaeologist, traveler and historian--but also as horrified
observer."
--Sarah Wildman, Jewish Daily Forward
"A monumental and profoundly important book . . . A brilliant
account that reads as part history, part human rights theory, and
part thriller . . . Sands writes like a skilled archeologist
digging into the bloodied soil of Europe . . . A riveting melding
of memoir and history . . . A powerful book, exquisitely written
and profound in its implications and importance . . . A singular
accomplishment . . . An inspirational book that readers will
cherish for years to come."
--Michael N. Dobkowski, Jewish Book Council "Dazzling, shattering.
East West Street is one of the most extraordinary books that I have
ever read."
--Antonia Fraser "A masterpiece that is part detective story and
part exploration of family history, memory, crime, guild, loss and
law . . . Exceptionally gripping and moving . . . East West Street
is described by John Le Carré as 'a monumental achievement' and he
is right. It is work of the highest order and it deserves to be as
widely read as possible. It is, I reiterate, a masterpiece."
--Iain Martin, Reaction
"Supremely gripping . . . Sands has produced something
extraordinary . . . Sands tells it not just as history but as a
family memoir, a detective thriller and a meditation on the power
of memory . . . Written with novelistic skill, its prose
effortlessly poised, its tone perfectly judged, the book teems with
life and high drama . . . One of the most gripping and powerful
books imaginable."
--Dominic Sandbrook, The Sunday Times
"Remarkable . . . a voyage of discovery . . . a riveting odyssey .
. . Sands elicits the most extraordinary revelations from his
subjects."
--Isabel Hull, London Review of Books "Magnificent and compelling .
. . Sands has created a masterpiece . . . It should be read by
everyone."
--Marc Mangel, Distinguished Research Professor of Mathematical
Biology at University of California, Santa Cruz "A rare and unusual
event: a book about international law that makes you want to keep
reading."
--Cullen Murphy, Vanity Fair
"Outstanding . . . Consistently intriguing . . . A fusion of
personal and professional interest, with Sands delving into his
family's cordoned-off past to unearth concealed truths and trace
the circumstances that led to the birth of his chosen field of
humanitarian law . . . Powerful and poignant, but also original . .
. Ultimately, Sands's multifaceted book stands triumphantly alone.
It even-handedly charts four separate lives and skillfully explores
a beleaguered city with blurred borders . . . It amplifies the roar
of history, dramatizes the depravity of, and the moral struggle
against, what Primo Levi called the "infernal order" that is Nazism
. . . It is a fact-finding mission, a gripping courtroom drama, a
tale, ultimately and cathartically, of good triumphing over evil.
In Sands's pages, many beautifully adorned with photos, maps,
letters--evidence--we see the piece-by-piece reconstruction of a
lost world, and the development of ideas that would help safeguard
a new one."
--Malcolm Forbes, New Republic
"East West Street is the fascinating story of a distinguished
jurist who tries to untangle the secret wartime history of his
family, as he masterfully brings to life the riveting legal drama
that forced the men who ordered genocide to face justice. His
suspenseful investigative memoir breaks new ground on World War II,
as he takes readers on a journey across Europe that is rendered in
lush and vivid prose."
--Anne-Marie O'Connor, author of The Lady in Gold "Sands is a fine
writer and sets his scenes so compellingly and earnestly that his
enterprise succeeds . . . Engrossing, luminous and moving."
--Samuel Moyn, The Wall Street Journal
"A compelling family memoir intersects with the story of the Jewish
legal minds who sowed the seeds for human rights law at the
Nuremberg trials . . . important and engrossing . . . The surprise
is that even when charting the complexities of law, Sands's writing
has the intrigue, verve and material density of a first-rate
thriller . . . He can magic whole histories of wartime heroism out
of addresses eight decades old. Or, chasing the lead of a faded
photograph, he can unearth possible alternate grandparents and
illicit liaisons to be verified only by DNA tests . . .
Exceptional."
--Lisa Appignanesi, The Guardian
"Sands proceeds in the manner of certain historians . . . he also
works in the manner of the author of thrillers . . . In Sands's
history, as in all great novels, we encounter characters who,
though seemingly secondary, are essential to the plot . . . And all
the while Sands works in the way of artists like Filippo Lippi, who
painted himself into the corner of his 'Coronation of the Virgin'
and 'The Funeral of Saint Stephen' . . . The result is a narrative,
to my knowledge unprecedented . . . We have in Sands's East West
Street a machine of power and beauty that should not be ignored by
anyone in the United States or elsewhere who would believe that
there are irreparable crimes whose adjudication should not stop at
the border . . . Barack Obama and his successors would be well
advised to move to the top of their reading lists this account of
the birth, amid the darkest conceivable shadows, of an
unprecedented body of rights-based law, whose application has
scarcely begun."
--Bernard-Henri Lévy, New York Times Book Review (cover review)
"Vivid and readable . . . East West Street weaves lives together in
a kind of collective biography of a generation . . . remarkable . .
. compelling . . . moving and powerful."
--Mark Mazower, Financial Times "A story of heroes and loss . . .
An outstanding book; a moving history [that] at times, reads like a
detective story . . . Sands's greatest achievement is the way he
moves between his family story and the lives of Lauterpacht and
Lemkin and how he brings their complex work to life . . . This is
the best kind of intellectual history . . . a clear, astonishing
story."
--David Herman, New Statesman "Gripping, profound and deeply
personal . . . Excellent."
--Mark Harrison, Holocaust Memorial Day Trust "Remarkable . . .
vivid . . . complex and gripping . . . East West Street is a
fascinating and revealing book, for the things it explains: the
origins of laws that changed our world, no less. Thoughtful, and
compassionate, and important."
--Daniel Hahn, The Spectator "Moving and deep . . . an astonishing
work in many ways: on the personal level, on the level of
coincidence, on the epic level involving most people on earth, and
on the philosophical and legal level. That Sands managed to pull it
off and pull it all together is remarkable. Lemkin and Lauterpacht
are drawn with an artist's eye and are indelible--Lauterpacht's
reserve juxtaposed against Lemkin's nervousness . . . The issue of
the prosecution of genocide versus crimes against humanity is
fascinating and was made clear to me for the first time . . .
Bravo! . . . A gargantuan achievement."
--Jane Alexander "This remarkable book is partly a lawyer's quest
to understand the roots of international law (one that is
surprisingly fascinating for the non-legal reader) and a riveting
family memoir . . . Extraordinary . . . astonishing . . . a
considerable feat . . . profoundly moving."
--Caroline Sanderson, The Bookseller (Book of the Month) "A book
like no other I have ever read--unputdownable and
unforgettable."
--Orlando Figes "Beautiful and necessary."
--A.L. Kennedy "Astonishing and important."
--Louis Begley "East West Street is a strange and beautiful object:
at once a genealogy of international human rights law, and a
delicate family portrait . . . Meticulous, moving, compulsive."
--Adam Thirlwell "This book transcends genre, breaking convention
to create something fascinating and engrossing. Sands manages to
weave the most personal of stories through the most globally
impactful: the inclusion of the term 'crimes against humanity' in
the judgement at Nuremberg."
--Steven Cooper of Waterstones, The Bookseller "Engrossing . . .
remarkable . . . part family memoir, part biographical essay, part
historical exploration . . . A reminder of the incredible riches
that are to be found in archives, parish records, attics and old
suitcases when there is the energy and persistence to keep
digging."
--Caroline Moorehead, Literary Review
"In East West Street, Philippe Sands brings all the power of his
formidable intellect, his inquisitive spirit and his emotional
imagination to bear on a complicated tangle of personal, legal and
European history. In a gripping narrative that is tender yet
dispassionate, intensely felt and meticulously researched, Sands
uncovers the surprising affinities and divergences among the
parallel lives of three men, two celebrated, one unknown, whose
struggles, sorrows, accomplishments and defeats, large and small,
help us to understand and, more, to feel the mittel-European
civilization their lives embodied, a whole world that was destroyed
and reinvented within the span of a single lifetime."
--Michael Chabon, author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier &
Clay "Gripping . . . Sands's study achieves a balance between the
individual and the political that brings the events of the
Holocaust into new focus . . . Readers interested in history,
political science, and/or religion shouldn't miss this compelling
work with unforgettable characters."
--Margaret Heller, Library Journal
"In a triumph of astonishing research, Sands has brilliantly woven
together several family stories which lead to the great denouement
at the Nuremberg tribunal. No novel could possibly match such an
important work of truth."
--Antony Beevor (English Military Historian)
"An engrossing tale of family secrets and groundbreaking legal
precedents . . . a tense, riveting melding of memoir and history .
. . From letters, photographs, and deeply revealing interviews, the
author portrays Nazi persecutions in shattering detail . . . Vastly
important."
--Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review) "A monumental achievement ... a
profoundly personal account of the origins of crimes against
humanity and genocide, told with love, anger and precision."
--John le Carré
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