Joy Gordon, Ph.D., a political philosopher and international law expert whose painstaking research into the inner workings of the United Nations Security Council led to her groundbreaking book "Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions," will read from her work on Thursday, March 22 at 7 p.m. at the Fairfield University Bookstore, 1499 Post Road, Fairfield. Dr. Gordon, a professor of philosophy at Fairfield University, will also sign copies of her book at the event, which is free and open to the public.

"Invisible War," which was several years in the making, is one of the few document-based study to examine the internal workings of the United Nations Security Council. It offers a detailed description of what happens in the Security Council behind closed doors by looking at its decisions surrounding the devastating Iraq sanctions. It has received widespread acclaim: Foreign Policy named it one of the best books of 2010.

"Even at the time, the sanctions against Iraq drew only sporadic public comment, and even less attention was paid to the bureaucratic maneuvers in Washington, always with the dutiful assistance of London, which ensured the deaths of half a million children, among other consequences," wrote a critic for the London Review of Books. "In her excellent book Joy Gordon charts these in horrifying detail."

Sir Harold Walker, former British ambassador to Iraq, said of the book: "Gordon dissects U.S. policies and practices in forensic detail. It is a chilling, and telling, tale of how a complex and sophisticated bureaucracy, given an overriding security remit, could be content not merely to allow a humanitarian tragedy to take place but indeed to help to create it, not by active malevolence but through indifference."

Dr. Gordon has a Ph.D. in philosophy from Yale and a J.D. from Boston University School of Law. She teaches courses on political philosophy, human rights, philosophy of law, international law, and ethics of war and peace.

In addition to her work at Fairfield, Dr. Gordon is a senior fellow at the Global Justice Program in the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University. She has testified before Congress and has published articles in Atlantic Monthly, Harper's magazine, The Nation, Le Monde Diplomatique and many other publications. Her work has been published in more than a dozen languages. She was recently awarded a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities to continue work on her next book, "A Peaceful, Silent, Deadly Remedy: The Ethics of Economic Sanctions."

Posted On: 03-02-2012 11:03 AM

Volume: 44 Number: 204