Governments, Citizens, and Genocide

A Comparative and Interdisciplinary Analysis

Browse Return to Previous Page       Related Subjects All Subjects General Interest Highlights

by Alex Alvarez

Indiana University Press

Due/Published April 2001, 240 pages, cloth

ISBN 0253338492

Governments, Citizens, and Genocide views the crime of genocide through the lens of social science. It discusses the problem of defining genocide and then examines it from the levels of the state, the organization, and the individual. Alvarez offers both a synthesis of the existing literature on genocide and important new insights developed from the study of criminal behavior. He shows that governmental policies and institutions in genocidal states are designed to suppress the moral inhibitions of ordinary individuals. By linking different levels of analysis, andbased on lessons drawn from his analysis, Alvarez offers an important discussion of the ways in which genocide might be anticipated and prevented."Alex Alvarez has produced an exceptionally comprehensive and useful analysis of modern genocide."--Stephen Feinstein, Director, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies

"Alex Alvarez has written a first-rate propaedeutic on the running sore of genocide. The singular merit of the work is its capacity to integrate a diverse literature in a fair-minded way and to take account of genocides in the post-Holocaust environment ranging from Cambodia to Serbia. The work reveals patterns of authoritarian continuities of repression and rule across cultures that merit serious and widespread public concern."--Irving Louis Horowitz

ContentsIntroductionChapter 1. The Age of GenocideChapter 2. A Crime By Any Other NameChapter 3. Deadly RegimesChapter 4. Lethal CogsChapter 5. Accommodating GenocideChapter 6. Confronting Genocide