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I You We Them

I You We Them

Revealing the ‘desk killers’, perpetrators of crimes against humanity

Summary

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

About the author

Dan Gretton

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.
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