A Century of Genocide

[Dave Monroe]

Weitz, Eric D.  A Century of Genocide:
   Utopias of Race and Nation.  Princeton, NJ:
   Princeton UP, 2003. 

Why did the twentieth century witness unprecedented 
organized genocide? Can we learn why genocide is
perpetrated by comparing different cases of genocide?
Is the Holocaust unique, or does it share causes and
features with other cases of state-sponsored mass
murder? Can genocide be prevented? 
  
Blending gripping narrative with trenchant analysis,
Eric Weitz investigates four of the twentieth
century's major eruptions of genocide: the Soviet
Union under Stalin, Nazi Germany, Cambodia under the
Khmer Rouge, and the former Yugoslavia. Drawing on
historical sources as well as trial records, memoirs,
novels, and poems, Weitz explains the prevalence of
genocide in the twentieth century-and shows how and
why it became so systematic and deadly. 
  
Weitz depicts the searing brutality of each genocide
and traces its origins back to those most powerful
categories of the modern world: race and nation. He
demonstrates how, in each of the cases, a strong state
pursuing utopia promoted a particular mix of extreme
national and racial ideologies. In moments of intense
crisis, these states targeted certain national and
racial groups, believing that only the annihilation of
these "enemies" would enable the dominant group to
flourish. And in each instance, large segments of the
population were enticed to join in the often
ritualistic actions that destroyed their neighbors. 
  
http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/titles/7491.html 


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