Social Justice and the Legitimacy of Slavery

Social Justice and the Legitimacy of Slavery PDF Author: Ilaria Ramelli
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198777272
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 310

Book Description
Were slavery and social injustice leading to dire poverty in antiquity and late antiquity only regarded as normal, "natural" (Aristotle), or at best something morally "indifferent" (the Stoics), or, in the Christian milieu, a sad but inevitable consequence of the Fall, or even an expression of God's unquestionable will? Social Justice and the Legitimacy of Slavery shows that there were also definitive condemnations of slavery and social injustice as iniquitous and even impious, and that these came especially from ascetics, both in Judaism and in Christianity, and occasionally also in Greco-Roman ("pagan") philosophy. Ilaria L. E. Ramelli argues that this depends on a link not only between asceticism and renunciation, but also between asceticism and justice, at least in ancient and late antique philosophical asceticism. Ramelli provides a careful investigation through all of Ancient Philosophy (not only Aristotle and the Stoics, but also the Sophists, Socrates, Plato, the Neoplatonists, and much more), Ancient to Rabbinic Judaism, Hellenistic Jewish ascetic groups such as the Essenes and the Therapeutae, all of the New Testament, with special focus on Paul and Jesus, and Greek, Latin, and Syriac Patristic, from Clement and Origen to the Cappadocians, from John Chrysostom to Theodoret to Byzantine monastics, from Ambrose to Augustine, from Bardaisan to Aphrahat, without neglecting the Christianized Sentences of Sextus. In particular, Ramelli considers Gregory of Nyssa and the interrelation between theory and practice in all of these ancient and patristic philosophers, as well as to the parallels that emerge in their arguments against slavery and against social injustice.

Master George's People

Master George's People PDF Author: Marfe Ferguson Delano
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 1426307594
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 64

Book Description
As the first President of the United States of America and the Commander in Chief who led a rebel army to victory in the Revolutionary War, George Washington was a legendary leader of men. He had high expectations of his soldiers, employees, and associates. At his Virginia plantation, Mount Vernon, his expectations of his workers were no different: "I expect such labor as they ought to render" he wrote. Except there was a big difference. The workers who kept Mount Vernon operating were enslaved. And although Washington called them "my people," by law they were his property. But the people of Mount Vernon were so much more, and they each have compelling stories to tell. These are fascinating portraits of cooks, overseers, valets, farm hands, and more- essential people nearly lost in the shadows of the past- interwoven with an extraordinary examination of the conscience of the Father of Our Country.

Justice Accused

Justice Accused PDF Author: Robert M. Cover
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300032529
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 340

Book Description
What should a judge do when he must hand down a ruling based on a law that he considers unjust or oppressive? This question is examined through a series of problems concerning unjust law that arose with respect to slavery in nineteenth-century America. "Cover's book is splendid in many ways. His legal history and legal philosophy are both first class. . . . This is, for a change, an interdisciplinary work that is a credit to both disciplines."--Ronald Dworkin, Times Literary Supplement "Scholars should be grateful to Cover for his often brilliant illumination of tensions created in judges by changing eighteenth- and nineteenth-century jurisprudential attitudes and legal standards. . . An exciting adventure in interdisciplinary history."--Harold M. Hyman, American Historical Review "A most articulate, sophisticated, and learned defense of legal formalism. . . Deserves and needs to be widely read."--Don Roper, Journal of American History "An excellent illustration of the way in which a burning moral issue relates to the American judicial process. The book thus has both historical value and a very immediate importance."--Edwards A. Stettner, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science "A really fine book, an important contribution to law and to history."--Louis H. Pollak

Evagrius's Kephalaia Gnostika

Evagrius's Kephalaia Gnostika PDF Author: Ilaria L.E. Ramelli
Publisher: SBL Press
ISBN: 9781628370416
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
A new English translation for scholars and students of church history Evagrius exerted a striking impact on the development of spirituality, of Origenism, and of the spiritual interpretation of the Bible in Greek, Syriac, and Latin Christianity. This English translation of the most complete Syriac version of Kephalaia Gnostika makes Evagrius Ponticus's thoughts concerning reality, God, protology, eschatology, anthropology, and allegorical exegesis of Scripture widely available. Features: English translation of the longer Syriac version discovered by Antoine Guillaumont Commentary provides an integrated analysis of Evagrius's ascetic and philosophical writings Extensive introduction on the importance of Evagrius and the context of his writings

Survivors of Slavery

Survivors of Slavery PDF Author: Laura T. Murphy
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231535759
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 345

Book Description
Slavery is not a crime confined to the far reaches of history. It is an injustice that continues to entrap twenty-seven million people across the globe. Laura Murphy offers close to forty survivor narratives from Cambodia, Ghana, Lebanon, Macedonia, Mexico, Russia, Thailand, Ukraine, and the United States, detailing the horrors of a system that forces people to work without pay and against their will, under the threat of violence, with little or no means of escape. Representing a variety of circumstances in diverse contexts, these survivors are the Frederick Douglasses, Sojourner Truths, and Olaudah Equianos of our time, testifying to the widespread existence of a human rights tragedy and the urgent need to address it. Through storytelling and firsthand testimony, this anthology shapes a twenty-first-century narrative that many believe died with the end of slavery in the Americas. Organized around such issues as the need for work, the punishment of defiance, and the move toward activism, the collection isolates the causes, mechanisms, and responses to slavery that allow the phenomenon to endure. Enhancing scholarship in women's studies, sociology, criminology, law, social work, and literary studies, the text establishes a common trajectory of vulnerability, enslavement, captivity, escape, and recovery, creating an invaluable resource for activists, scholars, legislators, and service providers.

Social Justice in an Open World

Social Justice in an Open World PDF Author:
Publisher: United Nations Publications
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 162

Book Description
The International Forum for Social Development was a 3 year project undertaken by the United Nations. Department of Economic and Social Affairs between 2001 and 2004 to promote international cooperation for social development and supporting developing countries and social groups not benefiting from the globalization process. This publication provides an overview and interpretation of the discussions and debates that occurred at the four meetings of the Forum for Social Development held at the United Nations headquarters in New York, within the framework of the implementation of the outcome of the World Summit for Social Development.

We Are Not Slaves

We Are Not Slaves PDF Author: Robert T. Chase
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469653583
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 543

Book Description
Hank Lacayo Best Labor Themed Book, International Latino Book Awards Best Book Award, Division of Critical Criminology and Social Justice, American Society of Criminology In the early twentieth century, the brutality of southern prisons became a national scandal. Prisoners toiled in grueling, violent conditions while housed in crude dormitories on what were effectively slave plantations. This system persisted until the 1940s when, led by Texas, southern states adopted northern prison design reforms. Texas presented the reforms to the public as modern, efficient, and disciplined. Inside prisons, however, the transition to penitentiary cells only made the endemic violence more secretive, intensifying the labor division that privileged some prisoners with the power to accelerate state-orchestrated brutality and the internal sex trade. Reformers' efforts had only made things worse--now it was up to the prisoners to fight for change. Drawing from three decades of legal documents compiled by prisoners, Robert T. Chase narrates the struggle to change prison from within. Prisoners forged an alliance with the NAACP to contest the constitutionality of Texas prisons. Behind bars, a prisoner coalition of Chicano Movement and Black Power organizations publicized their deplorable conditions as "slaves of the state" and initiated a prison-made civil rights revolution and labor protest movement. These insurgents won epochal legal victories that declared conditions in many southern prisons to be cruel and unusual--but their movement was overwhelmed by the increasing militarization of the prison system and empowerment of white supremacist gangs that, together, declared war on prison organizers. Told from the vantage point of the prisoners themselves, this book weaves together untold but devastatingly important truths from the histories of labor, civil rights, and politics in the United States as it narrates the transition from prison plantations of the past to the mass incarceration of today.

A Question of Freedom

A Question of Freedom PDF Author: William G. Thomas
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300256272
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 429

Book Description
The story of the longest and most complex legal challenge to slavery in American history For over seventy years and five generations, the enslaved families of Prince George’s County, Maryland, filed hundreds of suits for their freedom against a powerful circle of slaveholders, taking their cause all the way to the Supreme Court. Between 1787 and 1861, these lawsuits challenged the legitimacy of slavery in American law and put slavery on trial in the nation’s capital. Piecing together evidence once dismissed in court and buried in the archives, William Thomas tells an intricate and intensely human story of the enslaved families (the Butlers, Queens, Mahoneys, and others), their lawyers (among them a young Francis Scott Key), and the slaveholders who fought to defend slavery, beginning with the Jesuit priests who held some of the largest plantations in the nation and founded a college at Georgetown. A Question of Freedom asks us to reckon with the moral problem of slavery and its legacies in the present day.

International Legitimacy and World Society

International Legitimacy and World Society PDF Author: Ian Clark
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199297002
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Book Description
This is a study of the theory and history of international norms. How does international society come to adopt certain norms in particular? This book shows how ideas of international legitimacy have evolved, and makes us rethink the nature of international society.

Liberty Under Law

Liberty Under Law PDF Author: William M. Wiecek
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248

Book Description
The two-hundredth anniversary of the U.S. Constitution and the intense debates surrounding the recent nominees to the Supreme Court have refocused attention on one of the most fundamental documents in U.S. history—and on the judges who settle disputed over its interpretation. Liberty under Law is a concise and readable history of the U.S. Supreme Court, from its antecedents in colonial and British legal tradition to the present, William M. Wiecek surveys the impact of the Court's power of judicial review on important aspects of the national's political, economic, and social life. The author highlights important decisions on issues that range from the scope and legitimacy of judicial review itself to civil rights, censorship, the rights of privacy, seperation of church and state, and the powers of the President and Congress to conduct foreign affairs.