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Worse Than War: Genocide, Eliminationism, and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen New York: PublicAffairs, 2009 672 pages $29.95
This book examines a stark challenge, one that's been the focal point for the murder of millions but has escaped systematic study by those responsible for its prevention. Daniel Goldhagen offers his paradigm for genocide and its mechanisms in Worse Than War. This combative, clearly written, sometimes repetitive book offers an interdisciplinary perspective on genocide, incorporating more elements than readers have likely encountered or considered elsewhere.
The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide aims to prevent and punish "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group . . . ." This framework does not fully capture the universe of mass crimes that military and interagency planners will likely consider genocide. Goldhagen argues that the acts he identifies as eliminationism provide the most useful frame of reference. "Identifying these five eliminationist means of transformation, repression, expulsion, prevention of reproduction, and extermination suggests something fundamental that has escaped notice: from the perpetrators' viewpoint these elminationist means are (rough) functional equivalents."
Readers looking for analysis of genocide will find it in this book, but should proceed with...