Review by Choice Review
Yale historian Kiernan seeks to draw comparisons between genocides throughout world history, enabling scholars and lay readers to understand the individual examples of mass murder and to see the commonalities and related links between the horrific episodes. The author finds that certain ideological features appear during most genocides, such as racism, the desire for agricultural expansion, and the dream for a utopian society based on the skewed and often irrational conception of a more perfect world absent "subhuman" elements. "Racism becomes genocidal when perpetrators imagine a world without certain kinds of people in it," he observes. Although modern technology has in many ways made mass murder easier, humans prior to the 20th century often and willingly participated in the extermination of their neighbors. Kiernan treats some genocides in Asia, both ancient and modern, with more attention than he does some in Europe, but he illustrates some very interesting links between the various regimes. In many cases, the instigators of the genocide envision a mythic past and justify their murderous deeds with lofty goals, and most brutal governments are both authoritarian and arrogant. Kiernan concludes with a brief section on al Qaeda, which, like many of its predecessors, has combined "ethnoreligious violence with territorial expansionist ambitions that resemble those of other genocidal movements." Summing Up: Highly recommended. Useful for many different disciplines and readers at all levels. G. R. Sharfman Manchester College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Kiernan, director of the Genocide Studies Program at Yale, has written extensively on the causes and mechanisms of genocide in Southeast Asia. With this book, he examines genocide globally, venturing a framework by which genocide may be recognized and analyzed. Specifically, the author names four recurring and intertwined ideological preoccupations that tend to motivate the perpetrators of genocidal violence: racism or religious prejudice, territorial expansionism, romanticized notions of agrarian society, and cults of antiquity seeking a return to purity and order. Covering instances of genocide on every continent colonial violence in Australia, Africa, and North America as well as industrial-era violence in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East Kiernan notes haunting continuities across cultures and time periods. (Rome's eradication of the Carthaginians, for example, is shown to be a recurrent inspiration for more recent atrocities.) Though sections about the English conquest of Ireland and American violence against Native Americans may unsettle readers expecting to read only about Nazis and the Khmer Rouge, Kiernan's assertions are nuanced, and he never wields the term genocide carelessly. A bold and substantial work of unprecedented scope, this book is international history at its best.--Driscoll, Brendan Copyright 2007 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Booklist Review
