A Victim's Shoe, a Broken Watch, and Marbles

Jonathan Hearn, author of The Domestication of Competition: Social Evolution and Liberal Society:
Lea David’s vivid writing traces the paths of ‘desire objects' connected to persons and their tragic deaths in acts of war and genocide and how the moral labor invested in their various public trajectories gives substance to an evolving ideology of human rights. This is a highly innovative and thought-provoking book.

Jeffrey K. Olick, author of The Politics of Regret: On Collective Memory and Historical Responsibility:
What happens to the literal remains of atrocity, the personal objects it leaves behind? In this difficult and moving book, Lea David shows how personal possessions become what she calls 'desire objects' as they move from the forensic site through the homes of the survivors to the public sphere of museums and display. So much more than mere things, they are shaped by, and vehicles of, ideology and meaning. A signal contribution to moral sociology from one of its most creative practitioners.