Table of Contents

Introduction: Mass Killing in Historical and Theoretical Perspective

1. Mass Killing and Genocide

2. The Perpetrators and the Public

3. The Strategic Logic of Mass Killing

4. Communist Mass Killings: The Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia

5. Ethnic Mass Killings: Turkish Armenia. Nazi Germany, and Rwanda

6. Counterguerrilla Mass Killings: Guatemala and Afghanistan

Conclusion: Anticipating and Preventing Mass Killing

Notes
Index

About the Author

Benjamin A. Valentino is Assistant Professor of Government at Dartmouth College.

Reviews

In this brilliant study of genocides and mass murders, Valentino analyzes conditions leading to such monstrous crimes based on more than eight cases.... Valentino's extraordinary scholarship provides a challenge to conventional wisdom about what can and should be done about genocide.
*Choice*

In trying to make sense of such violence, scholars have tended to look within societies: at collective psychology, ethnic and racial hatred, and the character of government. In this astute and provocative study, Valentino argues instead that leaders, not societies, are to blame. In most cases, he finds that powerful leaders use mass killing to advance their own interests or indulge their own hatreds, rather than to carry out the desires of their constituencies.... Valentino cleverly notes that if mass killing is not deeply rooted in society but a tactic of state power, the rest of the world has fewer excuses for inaction.
*Foreign Affairs*

Valentino's analysis is flawless. His empirically rooted case studies are appropriate and interpretive strategies rigorous.
*Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism*