Understanding Genocide

Understanding Genocide PDF Author: Leonard S. Newman
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195133625
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
When and why do groups target each other for extermination? How do seemingly normal people become participants in genocide? In these essays, social psychologists use the principles derived from contemporary research in their field to try to shed light on the behaviour of perpetrators of genocide.

Understanding Genocide

Understanding Genocide PDF Author: Leonard S. Newman
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195133625
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
When and why do groups target each other for extermination? How do seemingly normal people become participants in genocide? In these essays, social psychologists use the principles derived from contemporary research in their field to try to shed light on the behaviour of perpetrators of genocide.

Understanding Atrocities

Understanding Atrocities PDF Author: Scott William Murray
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781552388853
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Understanding Atrocities is a wide-ranging collection of essays bridging scholarly and community-based efforts to understand and respond to the global, transhistorical problem of genocide. The essays in this volume investigate how evolving, contemporary views on mass atrocity frame and complicate the possibilities for the understanding and prevention of genocide. The contributors ask, among other things, what are the limits of the law, of history, of literature, and of education in understanding and representing genocidal violence? What are the challenges we face in teaching and learning about extreme events such as these, and how does the language we use contribute to or impair what can be taught and learned about genocide? Who gets to decide if it's genocide and who its victims are? And how does the demonization of perpetrators of atrocity prevent us from confronting the complicity of others, or of ourselves? Through a multi-focused and multidisciplinary investigation of these questions, Understanding Atrocities demonstrates the vibrancy and breadth of the contemporary state of genocide studies. With contributions by: Amarnath Amarasingam, Andrew R. Basso, Kristin Burnett, Lori Chambers, Laura Beth Cohen, Travis Hay, Steven Leonard Jacobs, Lorraine Markotic, Sarah Minslow, Donia Mounsef, Adam Muller, Scott W. Murray, Christopher Powell, and Raffi Sarkissian

Worse Than War

Worse Than War PDF Author: Daniel Jonah Goldhagen
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 0786746564
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 673

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Book Description
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's books are events. They stir passionate public debate among political and civic leaders, scholars, and the general public because they compel people to rethink the most powerful conventional wisdoms and stubborn moral problems of the day. Worse Than War gets to the heart of the phenomenon, genocide, that has caused more deaths in the modern world than military conflict. In doing so, it challenges fundamental things we thought we knew about human beings, society, and politics. Drawing on extensive field work and research from around the world, Goldhagen explores the anatomy of genocide -- explaining why genocides begin, are sustained, and end; why societies support them, why they happen so frequently and how the international community should and can successfully stop them. As a great book should, Worse than War seeks to change the way we think and to offer new possibilities for a better world. It tells us how we might at last begin to eradicate this greatest scourge of humankind.

Becoming Evil

Becoming Evil PDF Author: James Waller
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190287527
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
Political or social groups wanting to commit mass murder on the basis of racial, ethnic or religious differences are never hindered by a lack of willing executioners. In Becoming Evil, social psychologist James Waller uncovers the internal and external factors that can lead ordinary people to commit extraordinary acts of evil. Waller debunks the common explanations for genocide- group think, psychopathology, unique cultures- and offers a more sophisticated and comprehensive psychological view of how anyone can potentially participate in heinous crimes against humanity. He outlines the evolutionary forces that shape human nature, the individual dispositions that are more likely to engage in acts of evil, and the context of cruelty in which these extraordinary acts can emerge. Illustrative eyewitness accounts are presented at the end of each chapter. An important new look at how evil develops, Becoming Evil will help us understand such tragedies as the Holocaust and recent terrorist events. Waller argues that by becoming more aware of the things that lead to extraordinary evil, we will be less likely to be surprised by it and less likely to be unwitting accomplices through our passivity.

Understanding Genocide

Understanding Genocide PDF Author: Leonard S. Newman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780195350845
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
When and why do groups target each other for extermination? How do seemingly normal people become participants in genocide? Why do some individuals come to the rescue of members of targeted groups, while others just passively observe their victimization? And how do perpetrators and bystanders later come to terms with the choices that they made? These questions have long vexed scholars and laypeople alike, and they have not decreased in urgency as we enter the twenty-first century. In this book--the first collection of essays representing social psychological perspectives on genocide and the Holocaust-- prominent social psychologists use the principles derived from contemporary research in their field to try to shed light on the behavior of the perpetrators of genocide. The primary focus of this volume is on the Holocaust, but the conclusions reached have relevance for attempts to understand any episode of mass killing. Among the topics covered are how crises and difficult life conditions might set the stage for violent intergroup conflict; why some groups are more likely than others to be selected as scapegoats; how certain cultural values and beliefs could facilitate the initiation of genocide; the roles of conformity and obedience to authority in shaping behavior; how engaging in violent behavior makes it easier to for one to aggress again; the evidence for a "genocide-prone" personality; and how perpetrators deceive themselves about what they have done. The book does not culminate in a grand theory of intergroup violence; instead, it seeks to provide the reader with new ways of making sense of the horrors of genocide. In other words, the goal of all of the contributors is to provide us with at least some of the knowledge that we will need to anticipate and prevent future such tragic episodes.

The Geometry of Genocide

The Geometry of Genocide PDF Author: Bradley Campbell
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813937426
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
In The Geometry of Genocide, Bradley Campbell argues that genocide is best understood not as deviant behavior but as social control—a response to perceived deviant behavior on the part of victims. Using Donald Black’s method of pure sociology, Campbell considers genocide in relation to three features of social life: diversity, inequality, and intimacy. According to this theory, genocidal conflicts begin with changes in diversity and inequality, such as when two previously separated ethnic groups come into contact, or when a subordinate ethnic group attempts to rise in status. Further, conflicts are more likely to result in genocide when they occur in a context of social distance and inequality and when aggressors and victims cannot be easily separated. Campbell applies his approach to five cases: the killings of American Indians in 1850s California, Muslims in 2002 India and 1992 Bosnia, Tutsis in 1994 Rwanda, and Jews in 1940s Europe. These case studies, which focus in detail on particular incidents within each instance of genocide, demonstrate the theory’s ability to explain an array of factors, including why genocide occurs and who participates. Campbell’s theory uniquely connects the study of genocide to the larger study of conflict and social control. By situating genocide among these broader phenomena, The Geometry of Genocide provides a novel and compelling explanation of genocide, while furthering our understanding of why humans have conflicts and why they respond to conflict as they do.

Fundamentals of Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention

Fundamentals of Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780896047167
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


The Path to Genocide in Rwanda

The Path to Genocide in Rwanda PDF Author: Omar Shahabudin McDoom
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108491464
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 439

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Book Description
Uses unique field data to offer a rigorous explanation of how Rwanda's genocide occurred and why Rwandans participated in it.

The Concept of Cultural Genocide

The Concept of Cultural Genocide PDF Author: Elisa Novic
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198787162
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Cultural genocide is the systematic destruction of traditions, values, language, and other elements that make one group of people distinct from another.Cultural genocide remains a recurrent topic, appearing not only in the form of wide-ranging claims about the commission of cultural genocide in diverse contexts but also in the legal sphere, as exemplified by the discussions before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and also the drafting of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. These discussions have, however, displayed the lack of a uniform understanding of the concept of cultural genocide and thus of the role that international law is expected to fulfil in this regard. The Concept of Cultural Genocide: An International Law Perspective details how international law has approached the core idea underlying the concept of cultural genocide and how this framework can be strengthened and fostered. It traces developments from the early conceptualisation of cultural genocide to the contemporary question of its reparation. Through this journey, the book discusses the evolution of various branches of international law in relation to both cultural protection and cultural destruction in light of a number of legal cases in which either the concept of cultural genocide or the idea of cultural destruction has been discussed. Such cases include the destruction of cultural and religious heritage in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the forced removals of Aboriginal children in Australia and Canada, and the case law of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in relation to Indigenous and tribal groups' cultural destruction.

War and Genocide

War and Genocide PDF Author: Martin Shaw
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745697526
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
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.