Benjamin A. Valentino finds that ethnic hatreds or
discrimination, undemocratic systems of government, and
dysfunctions in society play a much smaller role in mass killing
and genocide than is commonly assumed. He shows that the impetus
for mass killing usually originates from a relatively small group
of powerful leaders and is often carried out without the active
support of broader society. Mass killing, in his view, is a brutal
political or military strategy designed to accomplish leaders' most
important objectives, counter threats to their power, and solve
their most difficult problems.
In order to capture the full scope of mass killing during the
twentieth century, Valentino does not limit his analysis to
violence directed against ethnic groups, or to the attempt to
destroy victim groups as such, as do most previous studies of
genocide. Rather, he defines mass killing broadly as the
intentional killing of a massive number of noncombatants, using the
criteria of 50,000 or more deaths within five years as a
quantitative standard. Final Solutions focuses on three types of
mass killing: communist mass killings like the ones carried out in
the Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia; ethnic genocides as in
Armenia, Nazi Germany, and Rwanda; and "counter-guerrilla"
campaigns including the brutal civil war in Guatemala and the
Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
Valentino closes the book by arguing that attempts to prevent
mass killing should focus on disarming and removing from power the
leaders and small groups responsible for instigating and organizing
the killing.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
