Congratulations to Stanley Cohen on winning the American Society of Criminology s International Division Award for outstanding publication of 2000-2001 for States of Denial !

With images of disaster and atrocity raining down on us from every quarter, it s hard not to resort to a balming fatalism. Sociologist Stanley Cohen s timely book about how people and societies deny information which is too disturbing or threatening serves as a brilliant corrective ... This is how scholarship should be - zesty, engaged, witty, and always accessible. Anne Karpf, The Observer

Cohen is original, wise and essentially optimistic ... [He] looks towards a practical utopia where "a deep shame of passivity" would become a mobilizing norm of social life. Victoria Brittain, The Guardian

The sociologist Stanley Cohen, who spent many years in Israel before continuing his academic work in Britain, offers one key to why wars happen, why peace settlements do not take, and why terrible conflicts are ignored or dealt with ineffectively. His new book stresses how central denial is in conflict, indeed in all human life. The concept is well known, but Cohen s careful building up of the detail of denial in its many forms is truly illuminating. He leads the reader to the conclusion that it is denial that is "normal" and an ability to see the truth and act accordingly which is rare, whether in individuals or in governments. Martin Woolacott, The Guardian

[a] brilliant and important book. Anne Karpf, Jewish Chronicle

Stan Cohen masterfully exposes the intricate matrix of forms of denial ... Artfully crafted and beautifully written, States of Denial is certainly not an easy read: it forces us to confront our blind spots and rationalizations. After the twentieth century no serious intellectual can afford not to tread this book and absorb Stan Cohen s profound insights. TIKKUN

Over a period of several decades Cohen has made a series of original and provocative contributions to the field of criminology . This book offers a rich contribution to criminology of a much broader scope, one more in tune with an era of increasing globalization. It explores in a profound way the pervasive resistance to confronting some of the worst crimes of our time. Choice

In an exceptionally wide-ranging treatment of the topic, Cohen s timely book traces multiple forms of the denial of distant suffering. He analyses denial through through the rich literature of its expression, including cognitive psychology and psychoanalysis, social and political sources, the reports of witnesses and bystanders, legal theory and literary texts. Anthony Elliott, The Australian

Ignorance is bliss. But Cohen knows it is not. The details of denial are shocking to read ... [but] Cohen looks beyond despair towards a more honest way of living. He calls it the possibility of "living outside the lie", the phrase used by former Czech president Vaclav Havel. This isn t easy to achieve, he concedes, but that shouldn t stop you from trying. Sydney Morning Herald

This is a pathbreaking and comprehensive study of how political actors, civic groups, and private citizens manage to know and not know about the atrocity and suffering around them, a rare book whose practical value for activists and officials is as great as its contribution to scholarship. Eric Klinenberg, Le Monde Diplomatique

It would be hard to deny that denial is ubiquitous these days, but few have tried to survey the topic as comprehensively as Cohen does here. Lynne Segal, Radical Philosophy

How do we deal with the unthinkable? How do the perpetrators of horrors justify their actions to themselves and to society? And to what extent is a bystander a perpetrator? These are basic, painful questions that need to be confronted directly - which is what Stanley Cohen resolutely does in this book. Rating: very good . New Internationalist

Few topics can be so painful to contemplate as the modes of avoidance we constr