Genocide And The Modern Age

In the preface to this 2000 edition, the authors point out that with the advent of the millennium, it is important to take stock of the 20th century, which has been labelled as the Age of Genocide.

How should we understand genocide in the modern world? As an aberration from the norms of a dominant liberal international society? Or rather as a guide to the very dysfunctional nature of the international system itself? The Meaning of Genocide is the first work of its nature to consider the phenomenon within a broad context of world historical development. In this book, Mark Levene sets out the conceptual issues in the study of genocide, addressing the fundamental problems of defining genocide and understanding what we mean by perpetrators and victims, before placing the phenomenon in the context of world history. In an original and compelling argument, Levene seeks to explain how state violence against a range of groups has emerged in tandem with the rise of the West to global dominance and the emergence of increasingly streamlined, homogenous states. Levene contends that it is in the relationship of these nation-states to each other that we will find the well-springs of some of the most poisonous tendencies in the modern world. Thought provoking and beautifully constructed, The Meaning of Genocide is the first of a major four-volume survey, Genocide in the Age of the Nation State, which examines its subject within an extensive global and historical framework and which will become the definitive work on the subject.

This comprehensive introduction to the study of war and genocide presents a disturbing case that the potential for slaughter is deeply rooted in the political, economic, social and ideological relations of the modern world. Most accounts of war and genocide treat them as separate phenomena. This book thoroughly examines the links between these two most inhuman of human activities. It shows that the generally legitimate business of war and the monstrous crime of genocide are closely related. This is not just because genocide usually occurs in the midst of war, but because genocide is a form of war directed against civilian populations. The book shows how fine the line has been, in modern history, between ‘degenerate war’ involving the mass destruction of civilian populations, and ‘genocide’, the deliberate destruction of civilian groups as such. Written by one of the foremost sociological writers on war, War and Genocide has four main features: an original argument about the meaning and causes of mass killing in the modern world; a guide to the main intellectual resources – military, political and social theories – necessary to understand war and genocide; summaries of the main historical episodes of slaughter, from the trenches of the First World War to the Nazi Holocaust and the killing fields of Cambodia, Bosnia and Rwanda; practical guides to further reading, courses and websites. This book examines war and genocide together with their opposites, peace and justice. It looks at them from the standpoint of victims as well as perpetrators. It is an important book for anyone wanting to understand – and overcome – the continuing salience of destructive forces in modern society.

Genocide not only annihilates people but also destroys and reorganizes social relations, using terror as a method. In Genocide as Social Practice, social scientist Daniel Feierstein looks at the policies of state-sponsored repression pursued by the Argentine military dictatorship against political opponents between 1976 and 1983 and those pursued by the Third Reich between 1933 and 1945. He finds similarities, not in the extent of the horror but in terms of the goals of the perpetrators. The Nazis resorted to ruthless methods in part to stifle dissent but even more importantly to reorganize German society into a Volksgemeinschaft, or people’s community, in which racial solidarity would supposedly replace class struggle. The situation in Argentina echoes this. After seizing power in 1976, the Argentine military described its own program of forced disappearances, torture, and murder as a “process of national reorganization” aimed at remodeling society on “Western and Christian” lines. For Feierstein, genocide can be considered a technology of power—a form of social engineering—that creates, destroys, or reorganizes relationships within a given society. It influences the ways in which different social groups construct their identity and the identity of others, thus shaping the way that groups interrelate. Feierstein establishes continuity between the “reorganizing genocide” first practiced by the Nazis in concentration camps and the more complex version—complex in terms of the symbolic and material closure of social relationships —later applied in Argentina. In conclusion, he speculates on how to construct a political culture capable of confronting and resisting these trends. First published in Argentina, in Spanish, Genocide as Social Practice has since been translated into many languages, now including this English edition. The book provides a distinctive and valuable look at genocide through the lens of Latin America as well as Europe.

An invaluable introduction to the subject of genocide, explaining its history from pre-modern times to the present day, with a wide variety of case studies. Recent events in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, East Timor and Iraq have demonstrated with appalling clarity that the threat of genocide is still a major issue within world politics. The book examines the differing interpretations of genocide from psychology, sociology, anthropology and political science and analyzes the influence of race, ethnicity, nationalism and gender on genocides. In the final section, the author examines how we punish those responsible for waging genocide and how the international community can prevent further bloodshed.

Outlines the circumstances that led to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, where nearly one million people of an ethnic minority were exterminated in one hundred days, and discusses international reactions and the aftermath.

This world history of genocide examines the longue duree of mass murder from the beginning of human history to the present. Cases of genocide are examined as distinct episodes of killing, but in connection with earlier episodes. Communist and anti-communist genocides are considered, as are cases of settler (or colonial) genocide.

How should we understand genocide in the modern world? As an aberration from the norms of a dominant liberal international society? Or rather as a guide to the very dysfunctional nature of the international system itself? This is the first book to consider the phenomenon within a broad context of world historical development. In this first volume of a major four-volume survey, Mark Levene sets out the conceptual issues in the study of genocide and the historical linkage between the rise of the West, in both its modern and early modern domestic and colonial settings, and increasing tendencies to physically annihilate native peoples or religiously heterodox communal groups who stood as obstacles in its path.