Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th CenturyBenjamin A. Valentino finds that ethnic hatreds or discrimination, undemocratic systems of government, and dysfunctions in society play a much smaller role in mass killing and genocide than is commonly assumed. He shows that the impetus for mass killing usually originates from a relatively small group of powerful leaders and is often carried out without the active support of broader society. Mass killing, in his view, is a brutal political or military strategy designed to accomplish leaders' most important objectives, counter threats to their power, and solve their most difficult problems. In order to capture the full scope of mass killing during the twentieth century, Valentino does not limit his analysis to violence directed against ethnic groups, or to the attempt to destroy victim groups as such, as do most previous studies of genocide. Rather, he defines mass killing broadly as the intentional killing of a massive number of noncombatants, using the criteria of 50,000 or more deaths within five years as a quantitative standard. Final Solutions focuses on three types of mass killing: communist mass killings like the ones carried out in the Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia; ethnic genocides as in Armenia, Nazi Germany, and Rwanda; and "counter-guerrilla" campaigns including the brutal civil war in Guatemala and the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Valentino closes the book by arguing that attempts to prevent mass killing should focus on disarming and removing from power the leaders and small groups responsible for instigating and organizing the killing. |
From inside the book
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... carry out mass killing has been uncomfortably easy to achieve . Leaders have powerful methods to recruit the individuals needed to carry out mass killing and to secure the compliance or at least the passivity of the rest of society ...
... carry out mass killing . The vio- lence itself is typically performed by a relatively small group of people , usually members of military or paramilitary organizations . They carry out their bloody work often with little more than the ...
... carry substantial risks—inciting violent resistance from victim groups, alienating domestic populations and foreign powers, or provoking intervention by third parties. When perpetrators perceive the stakes to be high enough, and when ...
... carrying out such violence . In chapter 2 , I assess the available historical evidence on the role of public support for mass killing and the psychology and motives of the in- dividuals who actually carry it out . I argue that mass ...
... carry it out . In the final chapter I summarize the conclusions of this book and dis- cuss some implications of the strategic perspective for preventing or lim- iting mass killing in the future . I suggest that efforts to prevent mass ...
Contents
1 | |
9 | |
30 | |
3 The Strategic Logic of Mass Killing | 66 |
4 Communist Mass Killings The Soviet Union China and Cambodia | 91 |
5 Ethnic Mass Killings Turkish Armenia Nazi Germany and Rwanda | 152 |
6 Counterguerrilla Mass Killings Guatemala and Afghanistan | 196 |
Conclusion Anticipating and Preventing Mass Killing | 234 |
Notes | 255 |
Index | 311 |
Other editions - View all
Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century Benjamin A. Valentino Limited preview - 2005 |
Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century Benjamin A. Valentino Limited preview - 2004 |
Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century Benjamin A. Valentino Limited preview - 2013 |