This book offers a group of essays published in memory of David Thomasma, one of the leading humanists in the field of bioethics during the twentieth century. The authors represent many different countries and disciplines throughout the globe. The volume deals with the pressing issue of how to ground a universal bioethics in the context of the conflicted world of combative cultures and perspectives.

How has the United Nations dealt with the question of terrorism before and after September 11? What does it mean that the UN itself has become a target of terrorism? Terrorism and the UN analyzes how the UN's role in dealing with terrorism has been shaped over the years by the international system, and how events such as September 11 and the American intervention in Iraq have reoriented its approach to terrorism. The first half of the book addresses the international context. Chapters in this part consider the impact of September 11 on the UN's concern for the rights and security of states relative to those of individuals, as well as the changing attitudes of various Western powers toward multilateral vs. unilateral approaches to international problems. The second half of the book focuses more closely on the UN, its values, mechanisms, and history and its future role in preventing and reacting to terrorism. The Security Council's position on and reactions to terrorist activities are contrasted with the General Assembly's approach to these issues. What role the UN might play in suppressing the political economy of terrorism is considered. A concluding chapter looks at broader, more proactive strategies for addressing the root causes of terrorism, with an emphasis on social justice as a key to conflict prevention, a primary concern of the UN, particularly the General Assembly, before September 11. Contributors are Jane Boulden, Chantal de Jonge Oudraat (Georgetown University), Edward C. Luck (Columbia University), S. Neil MacFarlane (University of Oxford), Rama Mani (Geneva Centre for Security Policy), M. J. Peterson (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), Nico Schrijver (Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam), Mónica Serrano (Colegio de México and University of Oxford), Thierry Tardy (Geneva Centre for Security Policy), Karin von Hippel (King's College, London), and Thomas G. Weiss.

Several scholars have stressed the limits of language in the course of researching violence or when writing about it (Appadurai 1996, Das 2007). Our language seems insufficient to describe the horrors of violence (Binford 2004). Often, words seem to be frozen, and experiences of violence thus appear as if they could only be voiced from a distant position (Das and Kleinman 2001). How can we grasp the meaning of violence? How can anthropologists document the far-reaching and long term effects of violent actions? Focusing solely on narratives of violence and the context in which they emerge, is not sufficient to understand the meaning and the effects of violence. Particularly in realms of human experience, it is obvious that verbal language represents merely one among several ways of expression like gestures, rituals or certain kinds of public manifestations. An exploration of the vast range of different modes of expression thus promises to be the more adequate way to approach, register and understand the comprehensive manifestations and long-lasting effects of violence. This is the basic consideration why we chose ‘expressions’ of violence as the title for this volume, and asked the contributors to document and to analyze the diverging forms in which violence is addressed or conveyed. All the chapters of this volume thus deal with a paradox, as they attempt to turn into text violent experiences that, as we just presumed, cannot be expressed through verbal everyday language. The chapters discuss violence that is communicated through silences, rumours, literary narrations, represented in muted bodies, in rituals or role models. In order to grasp the meaning of violence as such, the contributors applied different perspectives, methods and analytical approaches. To comprehend the unspoken and the silence, most of the researchers have chosen a haptic approach. We borrow this term from Nordstrom (2010), who has defined her approach as ‘research through the senses’. Nordstrom has described the complexity of violence, its blurriness and its routinization or almost naturalization. In a similar approach, Verrips (2007) criticized researchers’ self-imposed restriction on visual manifestation in general, and claimed that a more balanced attention should be paid to our entire bodily sensorial experience. ‘We would then focus on [the] difficulty to grasp phenomena as deeply felt emotions and desires […] as well as the irrational and the fantastic, the absurd and the surreal.’ Our heavy emphasis on the role of the mind, reason and rationality, should give way to an increased interest in the sensual and emotional dimensions that are inherent in ‘our somatic experience of reality’ (Verrips 2007: 31).

Ice Cream: A Global History takes the reader on a vibrant trip through ice cream history, stretching from ancient China to modern-day Tokyo. As befits a food so strongly identified with celebration, the story of ice cream is a lively one – food and travel journalist Laura B. Weiss examines how this delicious indulgence became a global sensation. Ice Cream tells of chimpanzees wooed with ice cream cones, humour-loving World War ii German diplomats, and sundaes with names such as 'Moonlight on the Ganges' and 'Sweetheart Lovey-Dovey Supreme'. The account is populated by Chinese emperors, English kings, former slaves, women inventors, shrewd entrepreneurs, Italian immigrant hokey-pokey ice cream vendors and gourmand American First Ladies. Today American brands dominate the world ice cream market, but vibrant ice cultures like Italy's continue to thrive, and new ones, like Japan's, flourish through unique homegrown twists to the beloved treat.