"Genocide" may be the most powerful word in the English language. What is the significance and relevance of this formative concept today? In an extraordinarily wide-ranging collection of essays and interviews, Adam Jones, one of the world's leading genocide scholars, explores the uses and controversies surrounding the term that Raphael Lemkin coined during the Second World War to describe and prohibit mass atrocities against defined human groups.
In a style that is learned but always accessible and engaging, Jones addresses key historical and contemporary issues, such as: What were the motivations and proclaimed justifications for genocide in the "long nineteenth century" that shaped our modern world? How can "humanitarian" interventions in genocide avoid sliding into new imperialism? What are the connections between religion and genocide? How can the gender variable in genocide perpetration and victimization be understood? A wide range of historical and contemporary genocides and crimes against humanity, from the eighteenth-century slave rebellion in Haiti to Myanmar's destruction of the Rohingya, and to the forms of structural and systemic violence that Jones argues should be encompassed by any global-historical understanding of genocide.
Sites of Genocide is illustrated with photos from Jones's own collection and other sources. It will be of interest to all students and scholars of human rights and for general readers seeking a point of entry to the rich and provocative debates in comparative genocide studies.
Introduction: Seized of Sorrow
Part 1: History and Culture
- Genocide and Global/World History: Reflections
- Genocide and Holocaust
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Motivations and Justifications for Genocide in the Long Nineteenth Century
- Genocide and the West
- Religion, Genocide, and Islamic State
- The Bangladeshi Genocide in Comparative Perspective
- The Rohingya: Genocide in Myanmar?
- Challenges of Genocide Intervention
- Chomsky and Genocide
- The Great Lakes Genocides: Hidden Histories, Hidden Precedents
- Denying Rwanda, Denying Congo
- Gender, Genocide, and Gendercide
- Gendering Rwanda: Genocide and Post-Genocide
- Masculinities and Vulnerabilities in the Rwandan and Congolese Genocides
- Sexual Violence against Males in War and Genocide: Advances, Obstacles, Challenges
- Interview by Noah Berlatsky
- Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Men and Boys
- Interview by Rosanna Deerchild on CBC Unreserved
Part 2: Gendering Genocide
Coda: What Leads to Genocide?
Biography
Adam Jones, PhD is Professor of Political Science at the University of British Columbia Okanagan in Kelowna, Canada. He is the author of Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction (Routledge), a widely used textbook in the field of comparative genocide studies. He is the author or editor of over a dozen other books, mostly on genocide, gender, and crimes against humanity. Jones was selected as one of "Fifty Key Thinkers on the Holocaust and Genocide" for the book volume of that title (Routledge, 2010). He has worked as an expert consultant with the United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect, helping to implement conflict-prevention seminars in the Balkans, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere.
