In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Euro-American citizenry of California carried out mass genocide against the Native population of their state, using the processes and mechanisms of democracy to secure land and resources for themselves and their private interests. The murder, rape, and enslavement of thousands of Native people were legitimized by notions of democracy-in this case mob rule-through a discreetly organized and brutally effective series of petitions, referenda, town hall meetings, and votes at every level of California government. Murder State is a comprehensive examination of these events and their early legacy. Preconceptions about Native Americans as shaped by the popular press and by immigrants' experiences on the Overland Trail to California were used to further justify the elimination of Native people in the newcomers' quest for land. The allegedly "violent nature" of Native people was often merely their reaction to the atrocities committed against them as they were driven from their ancestral lands and alienated from their traditional resources. In this narrative history employing numerous primary sources and the latest interdisciplinary scholarship on genocide, Brendan C. Lindsay examines the darker side of California history, one rarely studied in detail, and the motives of both Native Americans and Euro-Americans at the time. Murder State calls attention to the misuse of democracy to justify and commit genocide. Purchase the audio edition.

Selected as a Book of the Year in 2017 in the Scottish Herald 'The beauty of the prose is in contrast with the horror anticipated by this superbly subtle narrative' Kapka Kassabova In 1971, on a routine outing through the Cambodian countryside, the young French ethnologist Fran-ois Bizot is captured by the Khmer Rouge. Accused of being an agent of 'American imperialism', he is chained and imprisoned. His captor, Douch - later responsible for tens of thousands of deaths - interrogates him at length; after three months of torturous deliberation, during which his every word was weighed and his life hung in the balance, he was released. Four years later, the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh. Fran-ois Bizot became the official intermediary between the ruthless conqueror and the terrified refugees behind the gate of the French embassy: a ringside seat to one of history's most appalling genocides. Written thirty years later, Fran-ois Bizot's memoir of his horrific experiences in the 'killing fields' of Cambodia is, in the words of John le Carr-, a 'contemporary classic'.

'Tremendous. A moving and haunting tribute to the human spirit' WILLIAM BOYD Into the heart of a genocide that left a million people dead 6 April 1994: In the skies above Rwanda the president's plane is shot down in flames. Near Kigali, Jean-Pierre holds his family close, fearing for their lives as the violence escalates. In the chapel of a hillside village, missionary priest Vjeko Curic prepares to save thousands of lives The mass slaughter that follows - friends against friends, neighbours against neighbours - is one of the bloodiest chapters in history Twenty years on, BBC Newsnight producer David Belton, one of the first journalists into Rwanda, tells of the horrors he experienced at first-hand. Now following the threads of Jean-Pierre and Vjeko Curic's stories, he revisits a country still marked with blood, in search of those who survived and the legacy of those who did not. This is David Belton's quest for the limits of bravery and forgiveness.

The UN outlawed genocide in 1948, and the United States launched a war on terror in 2001; yet still today, neither genocide nor terrorism shows any sign of abating. This book explains why those efforts have fallen short and identifies policies that can prevent such carnage. The key is getting the causation analysis right. Conventional wisdom emphasizes ancient hatreds, poverty, and the impact of Western colonialism as drivers of mass violence. But far more important is the inciting power of mass, ideological hate propaganda: this is what activates the drive to commit mass atrocities, and creates the multitude of perpetrators needed to conduct a genocide or sustain a terror campaign. A secondary causal factor is illiberal, dualistic political culture: this is the breeding ground for the extremist, "us-vs-them" ideologies that always precipitate episodes of mass hate incitement. A two-tiered policy response naturally follows from this analysis: in the short term, several targeted interventions to curtail outbreaks of such incitement; and in the long term, support for indigenous agents of liberalization in venues most at risk for ideologically-driven violence.

The author argues that a part of the history of nation building in Iraq through addressing its political characters, different communities, agreements and pan Arab ideology, including the Baath ideology and its attempts to seize power through nondemocratic methods. It is an attempt to approach the essence of the exclusion mentality of the ruling elite in order to understand the process of genocide against the Kurdish people, including all existing religious minorities. This essence of the process has been approached in the framework of the civilizing and de-civilizing process as a main theory of the German sociologist, Norbert Elias. Thus, this book may be considered as one of the comprehensive books to present a study of state-building in Iraq, along with identifying some of the political figures that had an essential impact on the construction. On the other hand, it is a comprehensive study of the genocide, in the sense of searching for the causes and roots of the genocide. The Anfal campaigns took place in 1988, but the process started as far back as the end of the sixties and the beginning of the seventies of the last century.

This book examines the origins of genocide and mass murder in the everyday conflicts of ordinary people, exacerbated by special interests. We examine cases harming people simply because they are considered unworthy and undeserving-for instance, if they are dehumanized. We confine our attention to genocide, mass murder, large-scale killing motivated by hate or desire for gain, and fascism as an ideology since it usually advocates and leads to such killing. The book draws on social psychology, especially recent work on the psychology of prejudice. Much new information on the psychology of fear, hate, intolerance, and violence has appeared in recent years. The world has also learned more on the funding of dehumanization by giant corporations via "dark money," and on the psychology of genocidal leaders. This allows us to construct a much more detailed back story of why people erupt into mass killing of minorities and vulnerable populations. We thus go on to deal with the whole "problem of evil" (or at least apparently irrational killing) in general, broadening the perspective to include politics, economics, and society at large. We draw on psychology, sociology, economics, political science, public health, anthropology, and biology in a uniquely cross-disciplinary work.

Anthem of Misogyny: The War on Women in North Africa and the Middle East argues that misogyny-which operates through an interconnected network of ideologies, institutions, beliefs, aesthetics, and cultural trends-is too complex and too deep rooted to eradicate with superficial changes. Like a national anthem, misogyny in North Africa and the Middle East has acquired a sacred status. It is accepted uncritically and woven effortlessly into daily practices, creating a community of men of different ages, educational levels, and socioeconomic backgrounds who are united in their sense of entitlement to evaluate, scrutinize, deter, question, and expose women. For women, it is as if they are in a state of perpetual war, forever on the verge of being accused of deviating from the norms and being punished. These norms, however, are neither clear nor predictable. This study of misogyny is written against a dominant orthodoxy in Western feminism. Critics are accused of gendered orientalism, savior complexes, and even Islamophobia if they dare to bring up misogyny and gender-based violence in North Africa and the Middle East in contexts other than blaming the West. Rather than exaggerate Western agency, this book is invested in making Muslim agency visible. There are narratives of violence and injustice that produce discomfort, anger, and even despair. These stories deserve to be told, and those behind the injustices are entitled to an unapologetic portrayal because the non-West, too, is deserving of feminist critique.

Picturing Genocide in the Independent State of Croatia examines the role which atrocity photographs played, and continue to play, in shaping the public memory of the Second World War in the countries of the former Yugoslavia. Focusing on visual representations of one of the most controversial and politically divisive episodes of the war -- genocidal violence perpetrated against Serbs, Jews, and Roma by the pro-Nazi Ustasha regime in the Independent State of Croatia (1941-1945) -- the book examines the origins, history and legacy of violent images. Notably, this book pays special attention to the politics of the atrocity photograph. It explores how images were strategically and selectively mobilized at different times, and by different memory communities and stakeholders, to do different things: justify retribution against political opponents in the immediate aftermath of the war, sustain the discourses of national unity on which socialist Yugoslavia was founded, or, in the post-communist era, prop-up different nationalist agendas, and 'frame' the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. In exploring this hitherto neglected aspect of Yugoslav history and visual culture, Jovan Byford sheds important light on the intricate nexus of political, cultural and psychological factors which account for the enduring power of atrocity images to shape the collective memory of mass violence.

In The Experiential Ontology of Hannah Arendt, Kim Maslin examines Hannah Arendt's political philosophy through a Heideggerian framework. Maslin argues that not only did Arendt grew beyond the role of naive and beguiled student, but she became one of Heidegger's most astute critics. Well acquainted with and deeply respectful of his contributions to existential philosophy, Arendt viewed Heidegger's work as both profoundly insightful and extraordinarily myopic. Not contented to simply offer a critique of her mentor's work, Arendt engaged in a lifelong struggle to come to terms with the collective implications of fundamental ontology. Maslin argues that Arendt shifted to political philosophy less to escape her own disappointment at Heidegger's personal betrayal, but rather as an attempt to right the collective flaws of fundamental ontology. Her project offers a politically responsive, hence responsible, modification of Heidegger's fundamental ontology. She suggests that Heidegger's allegedly descriptive and non-normative insight into the nature of being is necessarily incomplete, and potentially irresponsible, unless it is undertaken in a manner which is mindful of the collective implications. As such, Maslin shows how Arendt attempts to construct an experiential ontology that transforms Heidegger's fundamental ontology for use in the public sphere.

Wars have a destructive impact on society. The violence in the first case is domicide, in the second urbicide, in the third genocide, and in the fourth, the book introduces a neologism, sociocide, the killing of society. Through the lens of this neologism, Keith Doubt provides persuasive evidence of the social, political, and human consequences of today's wars in countries such as Bosnia and Iraq. Sociocide: Reflections on Today's Wars rigorously formulates, develops, and applies the notion of sociocide as a Weberian ideal type to contemporary wars. Drawing upon sociology, anthropology, philosophy, and literature, Doubt analyzes war crimes, scapegoating, and torture and concludes by examining capitalism in the face of the coronavirus pandemic as a sociocidal force. Embedded in the humanistic tradition and informed by empirical science, this book provides a clear conceptual account of today's wars, one that is objective and moral, critical and humanistic.

Gross violations of International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Laws have been committed in Syria. After a full cessation of violence, launching transitional justice processes will signal to the victims that those responsible for committing these crimes will be brought to reparation and that the time of impunity is over. This book discusses the available options of justice and how accountability will be achieved through international systems and a new hybrid court system.

In The Trial of Hissein Habre: The International Crimes of a Former Head of State, Emmanuel Guematcha recounts the trial of Hissein Habre, the former Head of State of Chad. Accused of committing crimes against humanity, war crimes, and torture while he ruled Chad between 1982 and 1990, he was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2016 and 2017 by the African Extraordinary Chambers. Guematcha examines the process that led to this achievement in Africa, including the failed attempts to try Hissein Habre in the Senegalese, Chadian, and Belgian courts. Guematcha discusses the mobilization of victims and the involvement of non-governmental and international organizations. He describes the particularities of the Extraordinary African Chambers, discusses the establishment of Hissein Habre's criminal responsibility, and presents the trial through the testimonies of several victims, witnesses, and experts. These testimonies shed light on what it means for individuals to be subjected to international crimes. The author also questions the impact and significance of the trial in Africa and beyond.

In 2018, Palestinians mark the 70th anniversary of the Nakba, when over 750,000 people were uprooted and forced to flee their homes in the early days of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Even today, the bitterness and trauma of the Nakba remains raw, and it has become the pivotal event both in the shaping of Palestinian identity and in galvanising the resistance to occupation. Unearthing an unparalleled body of rich oral testimony, An Oral History of the Palestinian Nakba tells the story of this epochal event through the voices of the Palestinians who lived it, uncovering remarkable new insights both into Palestinian experiences of the Nakba and into the wider dynamics of the ongoing conflict. Drawing together Palestinian accounts from 1948 with those of the present day, the book confronts the idea of the Nakba as an event consigned to the past, instead revealing it to be an ongoing process aimed at the erasure of Palestinian memory and history. In the process, each unique and wide-ranging contribution leads the way for new directions in Palestinian scholarship.

Niedersachsen, August 1961. Der Klassenlehrer Walter Wilke wird in seiner Dorfschule aus dem Unterricht abgeholt und spater in einem der ersten grossen Prozesse uber deutsche Verbrechen in Osteuropa verurteilt. In seinem kleinen Ort wird uber die Sache nicht gesprochen. Spater kehrt der Mann zuruck und lebt bis zu seinem Tod 1989 zuruckgezogen im Dorf. Seine Frau, mit der er uber Jahre in Bigamie gelebt hatte, ist die beliebte Landarztin. Jurgen Guckel, mehrfach ausgezeichneter Gerichtsreporter, geht einer Spur nach. Einer Geschichte, die ihn seit der Schulzeit beschaftigt, denn Walter Wilke war sein erster Lehrer. Guckel rekonstruiert einen einzigartigen Lebensweg: Walter war in Wahrheit Artur Wilke, der die Identitat seines gefallenen Bruders angenommen hatte. Artur selbst war studierter Theologe und Archaologe, im Dritten Reich der SS beigetreten, nachweislich an Massenerschiessungen von Juden beteiligt, galt als gefurchteter Partisanen-Jager und wurde nach dem Krieg dann Volksschullehrer. Sein Name ist mit grauenhaften Kriegsverbrechen verbunden, doch zur Rechenschaft gezogen wurde er fur seine Taten im Partisanenkampf nie. Das Buch zeichnet nicht nur eine spektakulare deutsche Biografie im 20. Jahrhundert nach die Entwicklung eines Intellektuellen zum Tater und die Verneinung jeglicher persoenlicher Schuld, das Wegsehen der Gesellschaft. Es zeigt auch auf, wie schwierig das Erinnern ist, wie unterschiedlich Erlebtes bewertet wird und wie schwer die Erarbeitung historischer Wahrheit letztlich ist. Auch nach der Sichtung mehrerer zehntausend Seiten Gerichtsakten und anderer Dokumente bleiben scheinbar einfache Fragen offen. Eine wahre Geschichte uber Bigamie und Theologie, Verbrechen und Vertuschung, uber die deutsche Nachkriegsgesellschaft und uber eine familiare Tragoedie.

The Western world's responses to genocide have been slow, unwieldly and sometimes unfit for purpose. So argues David Patrick in this essential new contribution to the aid and intervention debate. While the UK and US have historically been committed to the ideals of human rights, freedom and equality, their actual material reactions are more usually dictated by geopolitical 'noise', pre-conceived ideas of worth and the media attention-spans of individual elected leaders. Utilizing a wide-ranging quantitative analysis of media reporting across the globe, Patrick argues that an over-reliance on the Holocaust as the framing device we use to try and come to terms with such horrors can lead to slow responses, misinterpretation and category errors - in both Rwanda and Bosnia, much energy was expended trying to ascertain whether these regions qualified for 'genocide' status. The Reporting of Genocide demonstrates how such tragedies are reduced to stereotypes in the media - framed in terms of innocent victims and brutal oppressors - which can over-simplify the situation on the ground. This in turn can lead to mixed and inadequate responses from governments. Reporting on Genocide also seeks to address how responses to genocides across the globe can be improved, and will be essential reading for policy-makers and for scholars of genocide and the media.