Perpetrator Studies Network

Books

Memory in Hungarian Fascism: A Cultural History

By By Zoltán Kékesi. Memory in Hungarian Fascism: A Cultural History argues that fascist memory had a key role in the historical formation and later return of fascism. Tracing the trajectory of a perennial figure of fascist memory, the cult of Eszter Sólymosi, from interwar Hungary through the Cold War West to contemporary Hungary, the book covers…

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Everyday Denazification in Postwar Germany: The Fragebogen and Political Screening during the Allied Occupation

By Mikkel Dack. In the wake of World War II, the victorious Allied armies implemented a radical program to purge Nazism from Germany and preserve peace in Europe. Between 1945 and 1949, 20 million political questionnaires, or Fragebögen, were distributed by American, British, French, and Soviet armies to anxious Germans who had to prove their…

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Memory Politics after Mass Violence: Attributing Roles in the Memoryscape

By Timothy Williams. This book explores how political actors draw on memories of violent pasts to generate political power and legitimacy in the present. Drawing on fieldwork in post-violence Cambodia, Rwanda and Indonesia, the book demonstrates in what way power is derived from how roles are assigned, exploring who is deemed a perpetrator, victim or…

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Atrocity: A Literary History

By Bruce Robbins. Exploring literary representations of mass violence, Bruce Robbins traces the emergence of a cosmopolitan recognition of atrocity. Mass violence did not always have a name. Like conquest, what we think of now as atrocities have not always invited indignation or been seen to violate moral norms. Venturing from the Bible to Zadie…

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The Routledge Companion to Terrorism Studies: New Perspectives and Topics

Edited by Max Abrahms. Although the literature on terrorism is vast, there are many holes in it. This book helps to fill these lacunae with entries from top terrorism scholars and counterterrorism practitioners in the world. Grouped thematically by terrorist actors, conflict zones, major attacks, terrorist behaviors, militant group dynamics, terrorist consequences, and counterterrorism approaches,…

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Hitler’s Twilight of the Gods: Music and the Orchestration of War and Genocide in Europe

By Alexandra Birch. Music was an integral part of statecraft and identity formation in the Third Reich. Structured thematically and semiotically around the Wagnerian tetralogy of the Ring cycle, Hitler’s Twilight of the Gods provides a sonic read of the Second World War and the Holocaust. Alexandra Birch sheds light on the specific type of music promoted under Nazism,…

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Conversations with Third Reich Contemporaries: From Luke Holland’s Final Account

By Stefanie Rauch. Conversations with Third Reich Contemporaries presents a selection of excerpts from a recently opened collection of filmed interviews conducted by British documentary filmmaker Luke Holland (1948-2020). Most of the interviewees were young adults when the war ended. Some of them, or their families, had benefited materially through ‘Aryanisation’, Party-facilitated careers or exploiting forced…

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Persecution and Genocide: A History

By Gervase Phillips. This volume offers an unparalleled range of comparative studies considering both persecution and genocide across two thousand years of history from Rome to Nazi Germany, and spanning Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Topics covered include the persecution of religious minorities in the ancient world and late antiquity, the medieval roots of…

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Genocide Studies: Pathways Ahead

Edited by Jeffrey S. Bachman. In recent years, the world has been shaken by numerous events that have caused and continue to cause massive human suffering, from the COVID-19 pandemic to intrastate and interstate armed conflicts. Moreover, climate change continues to plow ahead, contributing to growing tensions, population movements, and resource scarcity. Meanwhile, the methods…

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Genocide in the Modern Age: State-Society Relations in the Making of Mass Political Violence

By Zachary A. Karazsia. This book explores why some episodes of mass political violence and genocide are so much deadlier than others and under what conditions perpetrators in government and society opt for brutality as a means of accomplishing their goals. Introducing the new concept of “mass political violence” to explain genocide and other mass killings…

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