Perversions of Justice: Indigenous Peoples and Angloamerican Law

by Ward Churchill

Book Overview

The United States is readily distinguishable from other countries, Chief Justice John Marshall opined in 1803, because it is "a nation of laws, not of men." In Perversions of Justice, Ward Churchill takes Marshall at his word, exploring through a series of 11 carefully crafted essays how the U.S. has consistently employed a corrupt form of legalism as a means of establishing colonial control and empire. Along the way, he demonstrates how this "nation...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0872864111
• ISBN13: 9780872864115
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: City Lights Books
• Length: 296 Pages
• Weight: 0.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

A call for justice

There are few who have produced such an important collection of essays regarding the mistreatment of indigenous people. I just finished reading the chapter on "The Radioactive Colonization of Native North America." It's a very sad episode that continues to this day, with the waste of our nuclear projects being put into weapons and dumped by the ton on the tribal people of Afghanistan and Iraq. The depleted uranium, and the mess that uranium mining and nuclear tests create effect not just native people, but all of us. It's estimated the 10,000 Americans have died from living downwind of the Nevada nuclear test sites. With the Bush administration planning to conduct more nuclear tests as they create a new "family" of nuclear weapons, Churchill's message is more important than ever. It's great that the elite establishment has brought so much attention to his work. In their effort to destroy and dismiss him, Churchill's books and ideas have come to the attention of tens of thousands of people. I don't know if Ward is an Indian or not, but the work of this "fake" Indian is more valuable than the work of fake cowboys like George Bush. We all have tribal roots, "Perversions of Justice" may inspire some of us to remember them.

Churchill Really Delivers

This guy is absolutely one of the best writers about the US Empire--he is a hammer, pounding away at crypto-fascistic policy and propaganda.Nearly everything that he's done is great--but this is by far his best work, synthesizing as it does a broad range of history, political science, critiques of race & class, leftwing philosophy, and (of course) US & international legal scholarhsip.Overall, the text reads as a collection of fairly tightly connected essays (you'll notice that he tends to build on points from earlier essays from the collection in the later texts)--and it builds to a crescendo in the stunning final essay (the wrong word for it, as it's about 100 pages, with nearly 600 footnotes).Inside are discussions of Russell Means & AIM, the development of US law vis-a-vis native (and thus all foreign) "sovereignty," genocide & its attendent denial, what he memorably calls "radioactive colonization," and a host of other items. Perhaps one of the best arguments is about the alleged "right to conquest," which he traces through its varied history in the international legal arena. In this case, it's clear that despite many prohibitions to the contrary, Might tends to construct Right, and those with wealth, power, and arms often enough simply do as they will, all the while citing "International Law & Human Rights" to support and protect their patently genocidal and fascistic endeavors.Highest Recommendation.