East West Street

A monumental achievement: profoundly personal, told with love, anger and great precision -- John le Carré
A monumental achievement: profoundly personal, told with love, anger and great precision
Supremely gripping. Sands has produced something extraordinary. Written with novelistic skill, its prose effortlessly poised, its tone perfectly judged, his book teems with life, from the bustling streets of Habsburg Lviv to the high drama of the Nuremberg trials. One of the most gripping and powerful books imaginable * SUNDAY TIMES *
Supremely gripping. Sands has produced something extraordinary. Written with novelistic skill, its prose effortlessly poised, its tone perfectly judged, his book teems with life, from the bustling streets of Habsburg Lviv to the high drama of the Nuremberg trials. One of the most gripping and powerful books imaginable -- Dominic Sandbrook * SUNDAY TIMES *
Important and engrossing. . . even when charting the complexities of law, Sands's writing has the intrigue, verve and material density of a first-rate thriller. . . He can magic whole histories of wartime heroism out of addresses eight decades old. Or, chasing the lead of a faded photograph, he can unearth possible alternate grandparents and illicit liaisons to be verified only by DNA tests. . . an exceptional memoir -- Lisa Appignanesi * OBSERVER *
Important and engrossing. . . even when charting the complexities of law, Sands's writing has the intrigue, verve and material density of a first-rate thriller. . . He can magic whole histories of wartime heroism out of addresses eight decades old. Or, chasing the lead of a faded photograph, he can unearth possible alternate grandparents and illicit liaisons to be verified only by DNA tests. . . an exceptional memoir * OBSERVER *
Engrossing ... Sands has written a remarkable and enjoyable book, deftly weaving his own family history into a lively account of the travails of the early campaigners for international human rights law * LITERARY REVIEW *
Engrossing ... Sands has written a remarkable and enjoyable book, deftly weaving his own family history into a lively account of the travails of the early campaigners for international human rights law * LITERARY REVIEW *
A magnificent book. A work of great brilliance. There is narrative sweep and intellectual grip. Everything that happens is inevitable and yet comes as a surprise. I was moved to anger and to pity. In places I gasped, in places I wept. I wanted to reach the end. I couldn't wait to reach the end. And then when I got there I didn't want to be at the end -- Daniel Finkelstein * THE TIMES *
A magnificent book. A work of great brilliance. There is narrative sweep and intellectual grip. Everything that happens is inevitable and yet comes as a surprise. I was moved to anger and to pity. In places I gasped, in places I wept. I wanted to reach the end. I couldn't wait to reach the end. And then when I got there I didn't want to be at the end * THE TIMES *
A fascinating and revealing book, for the things it explains: the origins of laws that changed our world, no less. It's also a readable book, and thoughtful, and compassionate. Most fundamentally, though, it's a book that tells a few individual human stories that lie behind the world-changing ones. That storytelling isn't redemptive - what could be, in this context? - but it confronts all those silences and challenges them. That challenge makes it an important book too * THE SPECTATOR *
A fascinating and revealing book, for the things it explains: the origins of laws that changed our world, no less. It's also a readable book, and thoughtful, and compassionate. Most fundamentally, though, it's a book that tells a few individual human stories that lie behind the world-changing ones. That storytelling isn't redemptive - what could be, in this context? - but it confronts all those silences and challenges them. That challenge makes it an important book too -- Daniel Hahn * THE SPECTATOR *
A vivid and readable contribution, part memoir, part documentary, to the history debate ... Much of the most compelling material in this book is personal ... Moving and powerful * FINANCIAL TIMES *
A vivid and readable contribution, part memoir, part documentary, to the history debate ... Much of the most compelling material in this book is personal ... Moving and powerful -- Mark Mazower * FINANCIAL TIMES *
Outstanding ... This is the best kind of intellectual history. Sands puts the ideas of Lemkin and Lauterpacht in context and shows how they still resonate today, influencing Tony Blair, David Cameron and Barack Obama. When we think of the atrocities committed by Slobodan Milosevic or Bashar al-Assad, it is the ideas of these two Jewish refugees we turn to. Sands shows us in a clear, astonishing story where they came from * NEW STATESMAN *
Outstanding ... This is the best kind of intellectual history. Sands puts the ideas of Lemkin and Lauterpacht in context and shows how they still resonate today, influencing Tony Blair, David Cameron and Barack Obama. When we think of the atrocities committed by Slobodan Milosevic or Bashar al-Assad, it is the ideas of these two Jewish refugees we turn to. Sands shows us in a clear, astonishing story where they came from -- David Herman * NEW STATESMAN *
In a triumph of astonishing research, Sands has brilliantly woven together several family stories which lead to the great denouement at the Nuremberg tribunal. No novel could possibly match such an important work of truth -- Antony Beevor
In a triumph of astonishing research, Sands has brilliantly woven together several family stories which lead to the great denouement at the Nuremberg tribunal. No novel could possibly match such an important work of truth
A book like no other I have ever read - unputdownable and unforgettable
A book like no other I have ever read - unputdownable and unforgettable -- Orlando Figes
A beautiful and necessary book -- A.L. Kennedy
A beautiful and necessary book
Dazzling, shattering. EAST WEST STREET is one of the most extraordinary books that I have ever read
Dazzling, shattering. EAST WEST STREET is one of the most extraordinary books that I have ever read -- Antonia Fraser
An exacting, heroic, essential education -- Peter Florence * DAILY TELEGRAPH *
An exacting, heroic, essential education * DAILY TELEGRAPH *
A masterpiece * EVENING STANDARD *
A masterpiece -- Andrew Neather * EVENING STANDARD *
A narrative to my knowledge unprecedented. . . a machine of power and beauty that should not be ignored by anyone in the United States or elsewhere who would believe there are irreparable crimes whose adjudication should not stop at the border * NEW YORK TIMES *
A narrative to my knowledge unprecedented. . . a machine of power and beauty that should not be ignored by anyone in the United States or elsewhere who would believe there are irreparable crimes whose adjudication should not stop at the border * NEW YORK TIMES *
In EAST WEST STREET, Philippe Sands brings all the power of his formidable intellect, his inquisitive spirit and his emotional imagination to bear on a complicated tangle of personal, legal and European history. In a gripping narrative that is tender yet dispassionate, intensely felt and meticulously researched. Sands uncovers the surprising affinities and divergences among the parallel lives of three men, two celebrated, one unknown, whose struggles, sorrows, accomplishments and defeats, large and small, help us to understand and, more, to feel the mittel-European civilization their lives embodied, a whole world that was destroyed and reinvented within the span of a single lifetime
In EAST WEST STREET, Philippe Sands brings all the power of his formidable intellect, his inquisitive spirit and his emotional imagination to bear on a complicated tangle of personal, legal and European history. In a gripping narrative that is tender yet dispassionate, intensely felt and meticulously researched. Sands uncovers the surprising affinities and divergences among the parallel lives of three men, two celebrated, one unknown, whose struggles, sorrows, accomplishments and defeats, large and small, help us to understand and, more, to feel the mittel-European civilization their lives embodied, a whole world that was destroyed and reinvented within the span of a single lifetime -- Michael Chabon
Reads more like a thriller or a spy story: not many barristers have their books endorsed by John le Carre * PROSPECT *
Reads more like a thriller or a spy story: not many barristers have their books endorsed by John le Carre -- Joshua Rozenberg * PROSPECT *
EAST WEST STREET is a landmark moment. From the ashes of the holocaust, the graveyards of Bosnia, and other places of mass killing, Sands gives a brilliant and uplifting insight into the birth of the crimes of "genocide" and "crimes against humanity" and the roles they played in bringing the agents of such slaughter to justice -- Jon Snow
EAST WEST STREET is a landmark moment. From the ashes of the holocaust, the graveyards of Bosnia, and other places of mass killing, Sands gives a brilliant and uplifting insight into the birth of the crimes of "genocide" and "crimes against humanity" and the roles they played in bringing the agents of such slaughter to justice
EAST WEST STREET pulls off the considerable feat of interweaving the lives of these three men with a brief history of international law and its origins, and some profoundly moving revelations about Sands' own forebears ... [It] is also an eminently topical book because it directly considers the impact of the past on our present * THE BOOKSELLER *
EAST WEST STREET pulls off the considerable feat of interweaving the lives of these three men with a brief history of international law and its origins, and some profoundly moving revelations about Sands' own forebears ... [It] is also an eminently topical book because it directly considers the impact of the past on our present -- Caroline Sanderson * THE BOOKSELLER *
Gripping ... This fascinating account of forgetting, forgiving and moving on ... achieves a balance between the individual and the political that brings the events of the Holocaust into new focus. ... [A] compelling work with unforgettable characters * LIBRARY JOURNAL *
Gripping ... This fascinating account of forgetting, forgiving and moving on ... achieves a balance between the individual and the political that brings the events of the Holocaust into new focus. ... [A] compelling work with unforgettable characters * LIBRARY JOURNAL *
There is growing suspicion that there are no stories left to tell of the Holocaust; all the pain and horror has been revealed to the point of repetition. But human-rights lawyer Sands proves that there is still room for thoughtful writers to educate, engage and even beguile readers on this terribly important subject ... An unexpected page-turner, EAST WEST STREET is a book for the twenty-first century that reminds us that the cruel lessons of the twentieth still have much to impart and must not be ignored * BOOKLIST *
There is growing suspicion that there are no stories left to tell of the Holocaust; all the pain and horror has been revealed to the point of repetition. But human-rights lawyer Sands proves that there is still room for thoughtful writers to educate, engage and even beguile readers on this terribly important subject ... An unexpected page-turner, EAST WEST STREET is a book for the twenty-first century that reminds us that the cruel lessons of the twentieth still have much to impart and must not be ignored -- Colleen Mondor * BOOKLIST *
EAST WEST STREET is a strange and beautiful object: at once a genealogy of international human rights law, and a delicate family portrait. The common element to this apparently unrelated pair is genocidal persecution - and other assorted horrors of twentieth century history. It is meticulous, moving and compulsive -- Adam Thirlwell
EAST WEST STREET is a strange and beautiful object: at once a genealogy of international human rights law, and a delicate family portrait. The common element to this apparently unrelated pair is genocidal persecution - and other assorted horrors of twentieth century history. It is meticulous, moving and compulsive
Shattering, important and incredibly readable * SUNDAY EXPRESS *
Shattering, important and incredibly readable -- John Lewis-Stempel * SUNDAY EXPRESS *
This book transcends genre, breaking convention to create something fascinating and engrossing. Sands manages to weave the most personal of stories through the most globally impactful: the inclusion of the term "crimes against humanity" in the judgement at Nuremberg. * THE BOOKSELLER *
This book transcends genre, breaking convention to create something fascinating and engrossing. Sands manages to weave the most personal of stories through the most globally impactful: the inclusion of the term "crimes against humanity" in the judgement at Nuremberg. -- Steven Cooper of Waterstones * THE BOOKSELLER *
This remarkable book is partly a lawyer's quest to understand the roots of international law (one that is surprisingly fascinating for the non-legal reader) and a riveting family memoir * THE BOOKSELLER, Book of the Month *
This remarkable book is partly a lawyer's quest to understand the roots of international law (one that is surprisingly fascinating for the non-legal reader) and a riveting family memoir * THE BOOKSELLER, Book of the Month *
Gripping, profound and deeply personal ... EAST WEST STREET is especially interesting and readable as much of it is a detective story of Sands' investigation into his family history ... The unravelling of these secrets, and the remarkable way that Sands' family history interweaves with those of Lemkin and Lauterpacht, make for gripping reading * HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY TRUST *
Gripping, profound and deeply personal ... EAST WEST STREET is especially interesting and readable as much of it is a detective story of Sands' investigation into his family history ... The unravelling of these secrets, and the remarkable way that Sands' family history interweaves with those of Lemkin and Lauterpacht, make for gripping reading * HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY TRUST *
Astonishing and important
Astonishing and important -- Louis Begley
Beginning and ending with the last day of the Nuremberg Trials, several powerful, interconnecting stories unfold in parallel * CHOICE *
Beginning and ending with the last day of the Nuremberg Trials, several powerful, interconnecting stories unfold in parallel * CHOICE *
Philippe Sands' remarkable book is a voyage of discovery into the lost world of Lemberg/Lwow, its peopl...