This volume is part of a comprehensive effort by Professor
Rummel to understand and place in historical perspective the entire
subject of genocide and mass murder-what is herein called Democide.
It is the third in a series of volumes published by Transaction, in
which Rummel offers a comprehensive analysis of the 120,000,000
people killed as a result of government action or direct
intervention.
Curiously, while we have a considerable body of literature on
the Nazi Holocaust, we do not have a total accounting-at least not
until now with the issuance of Democide. In addition to the
quantitative lacunae, there remains a paucity of theoretical
information distinguishing the historical descriptive and the
anecdotal accounts. This study of Nazi killings in cold blood is a
path-finding effort in political psychology.
While Rummel does not claim to give a definitive accounting, his
explanation for the numbers reached-and they are high-is
compelling. In addition, we now have a correlation of information
on the murder of diverse groups: Jews, Gypsies, Poles, Ukranians,
and even Germans themselves. It is now possible to fathom the Nazi
genocidal poiicies-which were collective and which were
selective.
Rummel's volume is a clear guide to a murky past. It offers the
first systematic effort to ascertain the nature and the extent of
the Nazi genocide from the point of view of the perpetrator's aims
rather than the victims' consequences. This is not a pretty
picture, but it is not a partisan one either. The materials are
presented in a clinical as well as a systemic fashion.
Rummel has a deep sense of the life-saving instincts of
individuals and the life-taking propensities of impersonal state
machinery. It is thus, a humanistic effort, one that plumbs the
effects of the Nazi war-machine on innocents in order to better
understand present conditions. Professionals ranging from social
scientists to demographers will find this a quintessential effort
at political reconstruction.
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!