Genocide: Home

The term 'genocide' was coined in 1944, but it has been practiced for centuries. The intent of one people to deliberately wipe out another can be traced back to the ancient world, and it continues today despite efforts from the United Nations and international treaties such as the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Beginning with an introduction that defines the term 'genocide', Genocide and International Justice discusses the field of comparative genocide studies and outlines the stages of the Holocaust, which has become the template for evaluating and defining other genocides. The introduction is followed by detailed case studies examining ethnocide among Native Americans in the precolonial and early colonial period, the decimation of the Native American population during the colonial period, and the massacres and forced migrations of Native Americans in the 19th century. This accessible new book details various acts of genocide by the Mongols in Central Asia and the Armenian genocide, as well as the genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, and Darfur. Efforts by the international community to prevent genocide and to prosecute those who commit acts of genocide are also discussed.

Of all the horrors human beings perpetrate, genocide stands near the top of the list. Its toll is staggering: well over 100 million dead worldwide. "Why Did They Kill? "is one of the first anthropological attempts to analyze the origins of genocide. In it, Alexander Hinton focuses on the devastation that took place in Cambodia from April 1975 to January 1979 under the Khmer Rouge in order to explore why mass murder happens and what motivates perpetrators to kill. Basing his analysis on years of investigative work in Cambodia, Hinton finds parallels between the Khmer Rouge and the Nazi regimes. Policies in Cambodia resulted in the deaths of over 1.7 million of that country's 8 million inhabitants-almost a quarter of the population--who perished from starvation, overwork, illness, malnutrition, and execution. Hinton considers this violence in light of a number of dynamics, including the ways in which difference is manufactured, how identity and meaning are constructed, and how emotionally resonant forms of cultural knowledge are incorporated into genocidal ideologies.

Tracing the rise of racist and eugenic ideologies, Henry Friedlanderexplores in chilling detail how the Nazi program of secretly exterminating the handicapped and disabled evolved into the systematic destruction of Jews and Gypsies. He describes how the so-called euthanasia of the handicapped provided a practical model for the later mass murder, thereby initiating the Holocaust. The Nazi regime pursued the extermination of Jews, Gypsies, and the handicapped based on a belief in the biological, and thus absolute, inferiority of those groups. To document the connection between the assault on the handicapped and the Final Solution, Friedlander shows how the legal restrictions and exclusionary policies of the 1930s, including mass sterilization, led to mass murder during the war. He also makes clear that the killing centers where the handicapped were gassed and cremated served as the models for the extermination camps. Based on extensive archival research, the book also analyzes the involvement of the German bureaucracy and judiciary, the participation of physicians and scientists, and the nature of popular opposition.

The term genocide has been used to describe a wide range of events and polities, from the "final solution of the Jewish question" in Nazi Germany to Western efforts to establish birth control and abortion programs in Third World nations. It is these dimensions of genocide that the authors to this volume explore, in the context both of their historical roots and of the implications for current and future international action. "Thoughtful and well-researched."--

"Few books are beautifully written, fewer still are important; this novel is both."--The Washington Post From New York Times bestseller Ruta Sepetys, author of Salt to the Sea A New York Times notable book An International Bestseller A Carnegie Medal Nominee Fifteen-year-old Lina is a Lithuanian girl living an ordinary life--until Soviet officers invade her home and tear her family apart. Separated from her father and forced onto a crowded train, Lina, her mother, and her young brother make their way to a Siberian work camp, where they are forced to fight for their lives. Lina finds solace in her art, documenting these events by drawing. Risking everything, she imbeds clues in her drawings of their location and secretly passes them along, hoping her drawings will make their way to her father's prison camp. But will strength, love, and hope be enough for Lina and her family to survive? A moving and haunting novel for readers of The Book Thief

When Elizabeth Endicott arrives in Aleppo, Syria, she has a diploma from Mount Holyoke, a crash course in nursing, and only the most basic grasp of the Armenian language. It's 1915, and Elizabeth has volunteered to help deliver food and medical aid to refugees of the Armenian Genocide during the First World War. There she meets Armen, a young Armenian engineer who has already lost his wife and infant daughter. After leaving Aleppo and traveling into Egypt to join the British Army, he begins to write Elizabeth letters, realizing that he has fallen in love with the wealthy young American.   Years later, their American granddaughter, Laura, embarks on a journey back through her family's history, uncovering a story of love, loss--and a wrenching secret that has been buried for generations.