"If you want peace, you must work for justice. Teresa Phelps presents challenging and provocative ideas of justice and explains what truth commissions can and cannot do as vital parts of the justice process. Building on works of literature, philosophy, psychology, and history, as well as on the language of the truth reports themselves, she breaks new ground for understanding what we must do in our continual quest for justice."--Theodore M. Hesburgh, author of The Humane Imperative "This vivid and moving book will help shape the emerging form of truth commissions in many places around the world."--James Boyd White, author of The Edge of Meaning Following periods of mass atrocity and oppression, states are faced with a question of critical importance in the transition to democracy: how to offer redress to victims of the old regime without perpetuating cycles of revenge. Traditionally, balance has been restored through arrests, trials, and punishment, but in the last three decades, more than twenty countries have opted to have a truth commission investigate the crimes of the prior regime and publish a report about the investigation, often incorporating accounts from victims. Although many praise the work of truth commissions for empowering and healing through words rather than violence, some condemn the practice as a poor substitute for traditional justice, achieved through trials and punishment. There has been until now little analysis of the unarticulated claim that underlies the truth commissions' very existence: that language--in this case narrative stories--can substitute for violence. Acknowledging revenge as a real and deep human need, Shattered Voices explores the benefits and problems inherent when a fragile country seeks to heal its victims without risking its own future. In developing a theory about the role of language in retribution, Teresa Godwin Phelps takes an interdisciplinary approach, delving into sources from Greek tragedy t