Interviews with Scholars of Genocide about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/genocide-studies
https://newbooksnetwork.com/category/politics-society/genocide-studies/
Gesamtlänge aller Episoden: 22 days 5 hours 31 minutes
Christopher Browning, “Remembering Survival: Inside a Nazi Slave Labor Camp” (W. W. Norton, 2010)
Christopher Browning is one of the giants in the field of Holocaust Studies. He has contributed vitally to at least two of the basic debates in the field: the intentionalist/functionalist discussion about when,
Paul Mojzes, “Balkan Genocides: Holocaust and Ethnic Cleansing in the 20th Century” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2011)
I was a graduate student in the 1990s when Yugoslavia dissolved into violence. Beginning a dissertation on Habsburg history, I probably knew more about the region than most people in the US about the region.
James Dawes, “Evil Men” (Harvard UP, 2013)
This week a Syrian rebel ripped the heart out of a loyalist fighter and ate part of it. You can see it on YouTube. Many people asked “How can people do things like this?” In his new book Evil Men (Harvard UP, 2013),
Richard Rashke, “Useful Enemies: John Demjanjuk and America’s Open-Door Policy for Nazi War Criminals” (Delphinium, 2013)
You may have heard of a fellow named Ivan or John Demjanuik. He made the news–repeatedly over a 30 year period– because he was, as many people probably remember, a Nazi war criminal nick-named “Ivan the Terrible” for his brutal treatment of Jews (and o...
Donald Bloxham, “The Final Solution: A Genocide” (Oxford UP, 2009)
The end of the Cold War dramatically changed research into the Holocaust. The gradual opening up of archives across Eastern Europe allowed a flood of local and regional studies that transformed our understanding of the Final Solution.
John K. Roth and Carol Rittner, “Rape: Weapon of War and Genocide” (Paragon House, 2012)
While reading about genocide and mass violence should always be be disturbing, a certain numbness sets in over time. Every once in a while, however, a book breaks through that numbness to remind the reader of the horror inherent in the subject.
Lee Ann Fujii, “Killing Neighbors: Webs of Violence in Rwanda” (Cornell UP, 2009)
The question Lee Ann Fujii asks in her new book Killing Neighbors: Webs of Violence in Rwanda (Cornell University Press, 2009) is a traditional one in genocide studies. Her research builds on earlier scholars such as Christopher Browning,
Mary Fulbrook, “A Small Near Town Auschwitz: Ordinary Nazis and the Holocaust” (Oxford UP, 2012)
The question of how “ordinary Germans” managed to commit genocide is a classic (and troubling) one in modern historiography. It’s been well studied and so it’s hard to say anything new about it. But Mary Fulbrook has done precisely that in A Small Town...
Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, “The Massacre in Jedwabne, July 10, 1941: Before, During, After” (Columbia UP, 2005)
On July 10, 1941, Poles in the town of Jedwabne together with some number of German functionaries herded nearly 500 Jews into a barn and burnt them alive. In 2000, the sociologist Jan Gross published a book about the subject that,
Christian Gerlach, “Extremely Violent Societies in the Twentieth Century” (Cambridge UP, 2010)
What if genocide scholars have been approaching the field the wrong way? When I first opened Extremely Violent Societies in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2010), I was immediately struck by the immense depth of research and learning...