The Courage of Strangers

Laber,Jeri

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Author
Laber,Jeri
Publish Date
02/16/2005
Book Type
Paperback
Publisher Name
PUBLICA
Subtitle
Coming of Age with the Human Rights Movement
Number of Pages
416
Edition
Standard Edition
ISBN-10
1586482882
ISBN-13
9781586482886
SKU
9781586482886

Description

After Jeri Laber earned a Master's degree in Russian studies at Columbia University, she became a part-time writer and editor and a full-time wife and mother. Then one day in 1973 she read an article about torture that altered her life and subsequently the lives of countless others around the world.

The Courage of Strangers tells how Laber became a founder and the executive director of Helsinki Watch, which grew to be Human Rights Watch, one of the world's most influential organizations. She describes her secret trips to unwelcoming countries, where she met with some of the great political activists of the time. She also recalls what it was like to come of age professionally in an era when women were supposed to follow rather than lead; how she struggled to balance work and family; and how her fight for human rights informed her own intellectual, spiritual and emotional development.

This story of the birth of the human rights movement is also a sweeping history of dissent and triumph in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Elegantly written, full of passion, humor and political wisdom, it is exciting history as well as a moving, entertaining, inspiring story of a woman's life.