Introduction: Mass Killing in Historical and Theoretical Perspective
1. Mass Killing and Genocide
2. The Perpetrators and the Public
3. The Strategic Logic of Mass Killing
4. Communist Mass Killings: The Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia
5. Ethnic Mass Killings: Turkish Armenia. Nazi Germany, and Rwanda
6. Counterguerrilla Mass Killings: Guatemala and Afghanistan
Conclusion: Anticipating and Preventing Mass Killing
Notes
Index
Benjamin A. Valentino is Assistant Professor of Government at Dartmouth College.
In this brilliant study of genocides and mass murders, Valentino
analyzes conditions leading to such monstrous crimes based on more
than eight cases.... Valentino's extraordinary scholarship provides
a challenge to conventional wisdom about what can and should be
done about genocide.
*Choice*
In trying to make sense of such violence, scholars have tended to
look within societies: at collective psychology, ethnic and racial
hatred, and the character of government. In this astute and
provocative study, Valentino argues instead that leaders, not
societies, are to blame. In most cases, he finds that powerful
leaders use mass killing to advance their own interests or indulge
their own hatreds, rather than to carry out the desires of their
constituencies.... Valentino cleverly notes that if mass killing is
not deeply rooted in society but a tactic of state power, the rest
of the world has fewer excuses for inaction.
*Foreign Affairs*
Valentino's analysis is flawless. His empirically rooted case
studies are appropriate and interpretive strategies rigorous.
*Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism*
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