Event finished. This event was in the past: 7:00pm on Tuesday, May 13, 2025
Atkin discuss her book "Mightier Than the Sword: How Three Obscure Treaties Sanctioned the Enslavement of Millions and the Exploitation of Continents for More Than 400 Years." Registration requested.
About the book (from the publisher):
How can words on paper be more devastating than war? Why is there persistent inequality—racial, financial, structural? Why are things in our society the way they are? "Mightier Than the Sword: How Three Obscure Treaties Sanctioned the Enslavement of Millions and the Exploitation of Continents for More Than 400 Years" offers a perspective on the roots of the inequality of today. Documents written hundreds of years ago embody the biases and power strategies of their time, but they still have a long reach through history. Atkin examines three treaties—the Treaty of Tordesillas, the Treaties of Nanking, and the Conference of Berlin— that granted permission, or the sanctioned rationale, to decree that annihilation and confiscation of property was legal and just on five continents. Atkin argues these written words continued to achieve their objectives and exercise power by influencing, among other things, the codification of Eurocentric International Law. Enhancing trade was (and remains) the claimed intent but inequality serves this objective. Land dispossession, slavery, and the subjugation of Indigenous peoples are repeated themes in history and are unfortunately still with us today. This book will change how you understand today's events and the continuing influence of historic documents. This fresh perspective offers hope for real change in policy and the societies they shape.
In conversation:
Lorraine Atkin is not just a longtime student of history, law, and politics, but also a former leader in the criminal justice and political fields—all of which inspired her journey of discovery. She wrote "Mightier Than the Sword: How Three Obscure Treaties Sanctioned the Enslavement of Millions and the Exploitation of Continents for More Than 400 Years" with the hope that the reader can draw connections from the atrocities of the past as a result of these three historical documents to the adverse consequences and inequities we live with today. A mother of seven, a grandmother of 12, and a great grandmother, Lorraine Atkin lives in Princeton with her husband.
Stanley Katz is President Emeritus of the American Council of Learned Societies, the national humanities organization in the United States. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1955 with a major in English History and Literature. He was trained in British and American history at Harvard (PhD, 1961), where he also attended Law School in 1969-70. His recent research focuses upon developments in American philanthropy, the relationship of civil society and constitutionalism to democracy, and the relationship of the United States to the international human rights regime. He is the Editor in Chief of the recently published Oxford International Encyclopedia of Legal History, and the Editor Emeritus of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise History of the United States Supreme Court. He also writes about higher education policy, and has published a blog for the Chronicle of Higher Education. He is the co-founder and editor of the history of philanthropy blog www.histphil.org. Formerly Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor of the History of American Law and Liberty at Princeton University, he is a specialist on American legal and constitutional history, and on philanthropy and non-profit institutions. He received the annual Fellows Award from Phi Beta Kappa in 2010 and the National Humanities Medal (awarded by Pres. Obama) in 2011.
Presented with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this programming do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
AGE GROUP: | Adults |
EVENT TYPE: | Humanities | Civic Life | Author Talks | *Registration Requested |
TAGS: | NEH |
