Taking Lives is a pivotal effort to reconstruct the social and political contexts of twentieth century, state-inspired mass murder. Irving Louis Horowitz re-examines genocide from a new perspective -- viewing this issue as the defining element in the political sociology of our time. The fifth edition includes approximately 30 percent new materials with five new chapters. The work is divided into five parts: "Present as History Past as Prologue, " "Future as Memory, " "Toward A General Theory of State-Sponsored Crime, " "Studying Genocide." The new edition concludes with chapters reviewing the natural history of genocide studies from 1945 to the present, along with a candid self-appraisal of the author's work in this field over four decades.

Taking Lives asserts that genocide is not a sporadic or random event, nor is it necessarily linked to economic development or social progress. Genocide is a special sort of mass destruction conducted with the approval of the state apparatus. Life and death issues are uniquely fundamental, since they alone serve as a precondition for the examination of all other issues. Such concerns move us beyond abstract, formalist frameworks into new ways of viewing the social study of the human condition. Nearly all reviewers of earlier editions have recognized this. Taking Lives is a fundamental work for political scientists, sociologists, and all those concerned with the state's propensity toward evil.

Silence has many causes: shame, embarrassment, ignorance, a desire to protect. The silence that has surrounded the atrocities committed against the Jewish population of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union during World War II is particularly remarkable given the scholarly and popular interest in the war. It, too, has many causes--of which antisemitism, the most striking, is only one. When, on July 10, 1941, in the wake of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, local residents enflamed by Nazi propaganda murdered the entire Jewish population of Jedwabne, Poland, the ferocity of the attack horrified their fellow Poles. The denial of Polish involvement in the massacre lasted for decades.
Since its founding, the journal "Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History" has led the way in exploring the East European and Soviet experience of the Holocaust. This volume combines revised articles from the journal and previously unpublished pieces to highlight the complex interactions of prejudice, power, and publicity. It offers a probing examination of the complicity of local populations in the mass murder of Jews perpetrated in areas such as Poland, Ukraine, Bessarabia, and northern Bukovina and analyzes Soviet responses to the Holocaust.
Based on Soviet commission reports, news media, and other archives, the contributors examine the factors that led certain local residents to participate in the extermination of their Jewish neighbors; the interaction of Nazi occupation regimes with various sectors of the local population; the ambiguities of Soviet press coverage, which at times reported and at times suppressed information about persecution specifically directed at the Jews; the extraordinary Soviet efforts to document and prosecute Nazi crimes and the way in which the Soviet state's agenda informed that effort; and the lingering effects of silence about the true impact of the Holocaust on public memory and state responses.

This book explores Puritanism and its continuing influence on U.S. and military law in the Global War on Terror, exploring connections between Puritanism and notions of responsibility in relation to military crimes, superstitious practices within the military, and urges for revenge. Engaging with the work of figures such as Durkheim, Fauconnet and Weber, it draws on primary data gathered through participation and observation at the U.S. Army courts-martial following events at Abu Ghraib, Operation Iron Triangle, the Baghdad canal killings and a war crimes case in Afghanistan, to show how Puritan cultural habits color and shape both American military actions and the ways in which these actions are perceived by the American public. A theoretically sophisticated examination of the cultural tendencies that shape military conduct and justice in the context of a contemporary global conflict, The Puritan Culture of America's Military will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in social theory and sociology, cultural studies, politics and international relations and military studies.

This book studies children's and young adult literature of genocide since 1945, considering issues of representation and using postcolonial theory to provide both literary analysis and implications for educating the young. Many of the authors visited accurately and authentically portray the genocide about which they write; others perpetuate stereotypes or otherwise distort, demean, or oversimplify. In this focus on young people's literature of specific genocides, Gangi profiles and critiques works on the Cambodian genocide (1975-1979); the Iraqi Kurds (1988); the Maya of Guatemala (1981-1983); Bosnia, Kosovo, and Srebrenica (1990s); Rwanda (1994); and Darfur (2003-present). In addition to critical analysis, each chapter also provides historical background based on the work of prominent genocide scholars. To conduct research for the book, Gangi traveled to Bosnia, engaged in conversation with young people from Rwanda, and spoke with scholars who had traveled to or lived in Guatemala and Cambodia. This book analyses the ways contemporary children, typically ages ten and up, are engaged in the study of genocide, and addresses the ways in which child survivors who have witnessed genocide are helped by literature that mirrors their experiences.

Using interviews as primary sources this book shines a light on the infamous Portuguese massacre of Wiriyamu in colonial Mozambique in 1972. Twenty-four carefully curated testimonies are presented, covering Portugal's last colonial war in Mozambique, and the nationalist response that led to the massacre. Survivors share with you their escape from Wiriyamu, while data collectors, priests and journalists tell of their struggle to collect evidence and defend the truth about the killings in the international press. The Wiriyamu Massacre contextualizes the unique importance of the oral evidence it contains and reveals the in-depth interview methods used to gather the oral testimonies, and subsequently curate the transcript into readable texts. This is the horrific story of Wiriyamu, and what it can tell you about European colonialism, genocide and the darkness in humanity, spoken by the people who were there and who tried to tell the world.

Britain's Hidden Role in the Rwandan Genocide examines the role of the United Kingdom as a global elite bystander to the crime of genocide, and its complicity - in violation of international criminal laws - in the Rwandan genocide of 1994. As prevailing accounts confine themselves to the role and actions of the United States and the United Nations, the full picture of Rwanda's genocide has yet to be revealed. Hazel Cameron demonstrates that it is the unravelling of the criminal role and actions of the British that illuminates a more detailed answer to the question of 'why' the genocide in Rwanda occurred. In this book, she provides a systematic and detailed analysis of the policies of the British Government towards civil unrest in Rwanda throughout the 1990s that culminated in genocide. Utilising documentary evidence obtained as a result of Freedom of Information requests to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as well as material obtained through extensive interviews - with British government cabinet members, diplomats, Ambassadors to the United Nations Security Council, prisoners in Rwanda convicted of being leaders and organisers of genocide, and victims and survivors of genocide in Rwanda - she finds that the actions of the British and French governments, both before and during the Rwandan genocide of 1994, were disassociated from human rights norms. It is suggested herein that the decision-making of the Major government during the period of 1990 - 1994 was for the advancement of the interrelated goals of maintaining power status and ensuring economic interests in key areas of Africa, inferring a substantial degree of complicity in genocide by omission. That international politics is a strategic game has evidenced itself in the roles played by both the government of the United Kingdom and France in seeking to maximise their respective political and economic interests out with the existing international criminal constraints during the genocide in Rwanda. A micro study of the actions of the French Operation Turquoise reveals their actions to be clearly definable as complicity in genocide by commission. This account of the legal culpability of the powerful within the corridors of government in both London and Paris evidences that these behaviours cannot be conceptualised under existing notions of state crime and this research serves to illuminate the inadequacies and limitations of a concept of state crime in international law as it currently stands and will be of interest to anyone concerned with the misuse of state power.

This year the United Nations celebrated the 'Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide', adopted in December 1948. It is time to recognize the man behind this landmark in international law. At the beginning were a few words: "New conceptions require new terms. By 'genocide' we mean the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group". Rarely in history have paradigmatic changes in scholarship been brought about with such few words. Putting the quintessential crime of modernity in only one sentence, Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959), the Polish Jewish specialist in international law, not only summarized the horrors of the National Socialist Crimes, which were still underway, when he coined the term "genocide" in 1944, but also influenced international law. As the founding figure of the UN Genocide Convention Lemkin is finally getting the respect he deserves. Less known is his contribution to historical scholarship on genocide. Until his death, Lemkin was working on a broad study on genocides in the history of humankind. Unfortunately, he did not manage to publish it. The contributions in this book offer for the first time a critical assessment not only of his influence on international law but also on historical analysis of mass murders, showing the close connection between both. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Genocide Research.

From the early efforts that emerged in the struggle against Nazism, and over the past half century, the field of genocide studies has grown in reach to include five genocide centers across the globe and well over one hundred Holocaust centers. This work enables a new generation of scholars, researchers, and policymakers to assess the major foci of the field, develop ways and means to intervene and prevent future genocides, and review the successes and failures of the past.

The contributors to Pioneers of Genocide Studies approach the questions of greatest relevance in a personal way, crafting a statement that reveals one's individual voice, persuasions, literary style, scholarly perspectives, and relevant details of one's life. The book epitomizes scholarly autobiographical writing at its best. The book also includes the most important works by each author on the issue of genocide.

Among the contributors are experts in the Armenian, Bosnian, and Cambodian genocides, as well as the Holocaust against the Jewish people. The contributors are Rouben Adalian, M. Cherif Bassiouni, Israel W. Charney, Vahakn Dadrian, Helen Fein, Barbara Harff, David Hawk, Herbert Hirsch, Irving Louis Horowitz, Richard Hovannisian, Henry Huttenbach, Leo Kuper, Raphael Lemkin, James E. Mace, Eric Markusen, Robert Melson, R.J. Rummel, Roger W. Smith, Gregory H. Stanton, Ervin Staub, Colin Tatz, Yves Ternan, and the co-editors. The work represents a high watermark in the reflections and self-reflections on the comparative study of genocide.

Rape, traditionally a spoil of war, became a weapon of war in the ethnic cleansing campaign in Bosnia. The ICTY Kunarac court responded by transforming wartime rape from an ignored crime into a crime against humanity. In its judgment, the court argued that the rapists violated the Muslim women's right to sexual self-determination. Announcing this right to sexual integrity, the court transformed women's vulnerability from an invitation to abuse into a mark of human dignity. This close reading of the trial, guided by the phenomenological themes of the lived body and ambiguity, feminist critiques of the autonomous subject and the liberal sexual/social contract, critical legal theory assessments of human rights law and institutions, and psychoanalytic analyses of the politics of desire, argues that the court, by validating women's epistemic authority (their right to establish the meaning of their experience of rape) and affirming the dignity of the vulnerable body (thereby dethroning the autonomous body as the embodiment of dignity), shows us that human rights instruments can be used to combat the epidemic of wartime rape if they are read as de-legitimating the authority of the masculine autonomous subject and the gender codes it anchors.

Campbell offers a conceptual look into the nature of genocidal intent, systematically analyzing the conceptual and logical structures for genocidal intent, and discussing its theoretical foundations. The analysis offers particular insight into the process of operationalizing genocide and mass extermination. The investigation includes discussion of the roles orchestrators play and the systematic development of a genocidal strategy, which requires the intent to purge pre-selected demographic identifiers from the population. Cambell also analyzes in detail the dynamic process of generational conflict, wherein former perpetrators become victims and victims become perpetrators.

The twentieth century has been labelled the 'century of genocide', and according to estimates, more than 250 million civilians were victims of genocide and mass atrocities during this period. This book provides one of the first regional perspectives on mass atrocities in Asia, by exploring the issue through two central themes. Bringing together experts in genocide studies and area specialists, the book looks at the legacy of past genocides and mass atrocities, with case studies on East Timor, Cambodia and Indonesia. It explores the enduring legacies of trauma and societal divisions, the complex and continuing impacts of past mass violence, and the role of transitional justice in the aftermath of mass atrocities in Asia. Understanding these complex legacies is crucial for the region to build a future that acknowledges the past. The book goes on to consider the prospects and challenges for preventing future mass atrocities in Asia, and globally. It discusses both regional and global factors that may impact on preventing future mass atrocities in Asia, and highlights the value of a regional perspective in mass atrocity prevention. Providing a detailed examination of genocide and mass atrocities through the themes of legacies and prevention, the book is an important contribution to Asian Studies and Security Studies.

Leading up to World War II, two Polish men witnessed the targeted extermination of Jews under Adolf Hitler and the German Reich before the reality of the Holocaust was widely known. Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish lawyer who coined the term "genocide," and Jan Karski, a Catholic member of the Polish resistance, independently shared this knowledge with Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Having heard false rumors of wartime atrocities before, the leaders met the messengers with disbelief and inaction, leading to the eventual murder of more than six million people. Messengers of Disaster draws upon little-known texts from an array of archives, including the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva and the International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen. Carrying the knowledge of disaster took a toll on Lemkin and Karski, but their work prepared the way for the United Nations to unanimously adopt the first human rights convention in 1948 and influenced the language we use to talk about genocide today. Annette Becker's detailed study of these two important figures illuminates how distortions of fact can lead people to deny knowledge of what is happening in front of their own eyes.

Propaganda, War Crimes Trials and International Law addresses the emerging jurisprudence and international law concerning propaganda in war crimes investigations and trials. The role of propaganda in the perpetration of atrocities has emerged as a central theme in the war crimes trials in the past century. The Nuremburg trials initially, and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda currently, have all substantially contributed to the development of international law in this respect. Investigating and exploring the areas between lawful and unlawful propaganda, they have dealt with specific mechanisms and consequences of the phenomenon within the perspective and framework of their international legal mandates. But the cultural codes and argots through which propaganda operates have vexed international courts struggling to assign responsibility to the instigators of mass crimes, as subtle, but potentially fatal, communications often remain undetected, misinterpreted or even dismissed as entirely irrelevant. With contributions from leading international scholars and legal practioners, Propaganda, War Crimes Trials and International Law pursues a comparative approach to this problem: providing an overview of the current state of the theory of propaganda in the social sciences; exploring this theory in the legal analysis of war crimes and related proceedings; and, finally, offering a study of the prosecution of propaganda-related crimes in international law, and the newly emerging jurisprudence of war crimes propaganda cases.

Most books on genocide consider it primarily as a twentieth century phenomenon. In "The Rise of the West and the Coming of Genocide," Mark Levene argues that this approach fails to grasp its true origins. Genocide developed out of modernity and the striving for the nation-state, both essentially Western experiences. It was European expansion into all hemispheres between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries that provided the main stimulus to its pre-1914 manifestations.One critical outcome, on the cusp of modernity, was the French revolutionary destruction of the Vendee. Levene finishes this volume at the 1914 watershed with the destabilising effects of the 'rise of the West' on older Ottoman, Chinese, Russian and Austrian empires, with devastating consequences for peoples such as the Armenians, and the East European Jews. "The Rise of the West and the Coming of Genocide "is the second volume in Levene's sweeping four-volume survey, "Genocide in the Age of the Nation State."

Elements of Genocide provides an authoritative evaluation of the current perception of the crime, as it appears in the decisions of judicial authorities, the writings of the foremost academic experts in the field, and in the texts of Commission Reports. Genocide constitutes one of the most significant problems in contemporary international law. Within the last fifteen years, the world has witnessed genocidal conduct in Rwanda and Bosnia and Herzegovina, while the debate on the commission of genocide in Darfur and the DR Congo is ongoing. Within the same period, the prosecution of suspected g nocidaires has taken place in international tribunals, internationalised tribunals and domestic courts; and the names of Slobodan Milosevic, Radovan Karadzic and Saddam Hussein feature among those against whom charges of genocide were brought. Pursuing an interdisciplinary examination of the existing case law on genocide in international and domestic courts, Elements of Genocide comprehensive and accessible reflection on the crime of genocide, and its inherent complexities.

In this sweeping, definitive work, leading human rights scholar David M. Crowe offers an unflinching look at the long and troubled history of genocide and war crimes. From atrocities in the ancient world to more recent horrors in Nazi Germany, Cambodia, and Rwanda, Crowe reveals not only the disturbing consistency they have shown over time, but also the often heroic efforts that nations and individuals have made to break seemingly intractable patterns of violence and retribution--in particular, the struggle to create a universally accepted body of international humanitarian law. He traces the emergence of the idea of 'just war, ' early laws of war, the first Geneva Conventions, the Hague peace conferences, and the efforts following World Wars I and II to bring to justice those who violated international law. He also provides incisive accounts of some of the darkest episodes in recent world history, covering violations of human rights law in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Cambodia, Guatemala, the Iran-Iraq war, Korea, Tibet, and many other contexts. With valuable insights into some of the most vexing issues of today--including controversial US efforts to bring alleged terrorists to justice at Guantanamo Bay, and the challenges facing the International Criminal Court--this is an essential work for understanding humankind's long and often troubled history.

Armenian national identity has long been associated with what has come to be known as the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Immersing the reader in the history, culture and politics of Armenia - from its foundations as the ancient kingdom of Urartu to the modern-day Republic - Gaidz Minassian moves past the massacres embedded in the Armenian psyche to position the nation within contemporary global politics. An in-depth study of history and memory, The Armenian Experience examines the characteristics and sentiments of a national identity that spans the globe. Armenia lies in the heart of the Caucasus and once had an empire - under the rule of Tigranes the Great in the first century BC - that stretched from the Caspian to the Mediterranean seas. Beginning with an overview of Armenia's historic position at the crossroads between Rome and Persia, Minassian details invasions from antiquity to modern times by Arabs, Mongols, Ottomans, Persians and Russians right up to its Soviet experience, and drawing on Armenia's post-Soviet conflict with Azerbaijan in its attempts to reunify with the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. This book questions an Armenian self-identity dominated by its past and instead looks towards the future. Gaidz Minassian emphasises the need to recognise that the Armenian story began well before the Genocide 1915, and continues as an on-going modern narrative.

For far too long the discipline of International Relations has failed to engage with the study of genocide. This is despite the fact that genocide holds a direct relationship with the central concepts of international relations: the state, war, power, and security. This bold, innovative and unique book sets out to tackle this by bringing the concept of genocide into the discipline of IR, via the English School, in order to theorise the relationship between genocide, justice, and order. Drawing on a wide-range of primary and secondary interdisciplinary material from International Relations, Genocide Studies, Security Studies, International Law, History, Politics and Political Theory, this book aims to understand genocide within the context of International Relations and the implications that this has on policymaking. Gallagher identifies the obstacles and challenges involved in bringing the study of genocide into IR and uniquely analyses the impact of genocide on the ordering structure of international society.

In 1948 the United Nations passed the Genocide Convention. The international community was now obligated to prevent or halt what had hitherto, in Winston Churchill s words, been a "crime without a name," and to punish the perpetrators. Since then, however, genocide has recurred repeatedly. Millions of people have been murdered by sovereign nation states, confident in their ability to act with impunity within their own borders.

Tracing the history of genocide since 1945, and looking at a number of cases across continents and decades, this book discusses a range of critical and inter-connected issues such as:

• why this crime is different, why exactly it is said to be "the crime of crimes"
• how each genocide involves a deadly triangle of perpetrators (with their collaborators), victims and bystanders as well as rescuers
• the different stages that genocides go through, from conception to denial
• the different explanations that have been put forward for why genocide takes place
• and the question of humanitarian intervention.

Genocide since 1945 aims to help the reader understand how, when, where and why this crime has been committed since 1945, why it has proven so difficult to halt or prevent its recurrence, and what now might be done about it. It is essential reading for all those interested in the contemporary world.

The fourth edition of "Centuries of Genocide: Essays and Eyewitness Accounts" addresses examples of genocides perpetrated in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. Each chapter of the book is written by a recognized expert in the field, collectively demonstrating a wide range of disciplinary perspectives. The book is framed by an introductory essay that spells out definitional issues, as well as the promises, complexities, and barriers to the prevention and intervention of genocide.

To help the reader learn about the similarities and differences among the various cases, each case is structured around specific leading questions. In every chapter authors address: Who committed the genocide? How was the genocide committed? Why was the genocide committed? Who were the victims? What were the outstanding historical forces? What was the long-range impact? What were the responses? How do scholars interpret this genocide? How does learning about this genocide contribute to the field of study?

While the material in each chapter is based on sterling scholarship and wide-ranging expertise of the authors, eyewitness accounts give voice to the victims. This book is an attempt to provoke the reader into understanding that learning about genocide is important and that we all have a responsibility not to become immune to acts of genocide, especially in the interdependent world in which we live today.

Revision highlights include:

• New chapters on genocide of Native Americans in the nineteenth century, genocide in Australia, and genocide in the Nuba Mountains
• New chapter authors on Herero genocide and Rwanda genocide
• Consolidation of the 3 chapters on the Holocaust into one focused case
• Several chapters from past editions that were omitted are now available on a companion website (Indonesia, Burundi, indigenous peoples)

In the last two decades, the field of comparative genocide studies has produced an increasingly rich literature on the targeting of various groups for extermination and other atrocities, throughout history and around the contemporary world. However, the phenomenon of "genocides by the oppressed," that is, retributive genocidal actions carried out by subaltern actors, has received almost no attention. The prominence in such genocides of non-state actors, combined with the perceived moral ambiguities of retributive genocide that arise in analyzing genocidal acts "from below," have so far eluded serious investigation. Genocides by the Oppressed addresses this oversight, opening the subject of subaltern genocide for exploration by scholars of genocide, ethnic conflict, and human rights. Focusing on case studies of such genocide, the contributors explore its sociological, anthropological, psychological, symbolic, and normative dimensions.

Propaganda, War Crimes Trials and International Law addresses the emerging jurisprudence and international law concerning propaganda in war crimes investigations and trials. The role of propaganda in the perpetration of atrocities has emerged as a central theme in the war crimes trials in the past century. The Nuremburg trials initially, and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda currently, have all substantially contributed to the development of international law in this respect. Investigating and exploring the areas between lawful and unlawful propaganda, they have dealt with specific mechanisms and consequences of the phenomenon within the perspective and framework of their international legal mandates. But the cultural codes and argots through which propaganda operates have vexed international courts struggling to assign responsibility to the instigators of mass crimes, as subtle, but potentially fatal, communications often remain undetected, misinterpreted or even dismissed as entirely irrelevant. With contributions from leading international scholars and legal practioners, Propaganda, War Crimes Trials and International Law pursues a comparative approach to this problem: providing an overview of the current state of the theory of propaganda in the social sciences; exploring this theory in the legal analysis of war crimes and related proceedings; and, finally, offering a study of the prosecution of propaganda-related crimes in international law, and the newly emerging jurisprudence of war crimes propaganda cases.

Rape, traditionally a spoil of war, became a weapon of war in the ethnic cleansing campaign in Bosnia. The ICTY Kunarac court responded by transforming wartime rape from an ignored crime into a crime against humanity. In its judgment, the court argued that the rapists violated the Muslim women's right to sexual self-determination. Announcing this right to sexual integrity, the court transformed women's vulnerability from an invitation to abuse into a mark of human dignity. This close reading of the trial, guided by the phenomenological themes of the lived body and ambiguity, feminist critiques of the autonomous subject and the liberal sexual/social contract, critical legal theory assessments of human rights law and institutions, and psychoanalytic analyses of the politics of desire, argues that the court, by validating women's epistemic authority (their right to establish the meaning of their experience of rape) and affirming the dignity of the vulnerable body (thereby dethroning the autonomous body as the embodiment of dignity), shows us that human rights instruments can be used to combat the epidemic of wartime rape if they are read as de-legitimating the authority of the masculine autonomous subject and the gender codes it anchors.

This is the true story of a young American missionary woman courage and triump of faith in the jungles of New Guinea and her four years in a notorious Japanese prison camp. Never to see her husband again, she was forced to sign a confession to a crime she did not commit and face the executioner's sword, only to be miraculously spared.

In The Genocide Contagion, Israel W. Charny asks uncomfortable questions about what allows people to participate in genocide-either directly, through killing or other violent acts, or indirectly, by sitting passively while witnessing genocidal acts. Charny draws on both historical and current examples such as the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide, and presses readers around the world to consider how they might contribute to genocide. Given the number of people who die from genocide or suffer indirect consequences such as forced migration, Charny argues that we must all work to resist and to learn about ourselves before critical moments arise.