By Gina Heathcote. In the past decade, a sense of feminist ‘success’ has developed within the United Nations and international law, recognized in the Security Council resolution 1325 on women, peace and security, the increased jurisprudence on gender based crimes in armed conflict from the ICTR/Y and the ICC, the creation of UN Women, and Security…

By Laurike in ‘t Veld. This book mobilises the concept of kitsch to investigate the tensions around the representation of genocide in international graphic novels that focus on the Holocaust and the genocides in Armenia, Rwanda, and Bosnia. In response to the predominantly negative readings of kitsch as meaningless or inappropriate, this book offers a…

Edited by Alette Smeulers, Maartje Weerdesteijn, and Barbora Holá. Why would anyone commit a mass atrocity such as genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, or terrorism? This question is at the core of the multi- and interdisciplinary field of perpetrator studies, a developing field which this book assesses in its full breadth for the first time. Perpetrators of…

By George R. Mastroianni. How could the Holocaust have happened? How can people do such things to other people? Questions such as these have animated discussion of the Holocaust from our earliest awareness of what had happened. These questions have engaged the lay public as well as academics from many different fields. Psychologists have taken an…

By Matthew Talbert and Jessica Wolfendale. In 2005, US Marines killed 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha, including several children. How should we assess the perpetrators of this and other war crimes? Is it unfair to blame the Marines because they were subject to situational pressures such as combat stress (and had lost one of…

Edited by Christina Morina and Krijn Thijs. Of the three categories that Raul Hilberg developed in his analysis of the Holocaust—perpetrators, victims, and bystanders—it is the last that is the broadest and most difficult to pinpoint. Described by Hilberg as those who were “once a part of this history,” bystanders present unique challenges for those…

By Lisa Blaydes. A new account of modern Iraqi politics that overturns the conventional wisdom about its sectarian divisions. How did Iraq become one of the most repressive dictatorships of the late twentieth century? The conventional wisdom about Iraq’s modern political history is that the country was doomed by its diverse social fabric. But in State…

Edited by Henrik Vigh and Steffen Jensen. What makes young men willing to risk their lives by enrolling in violent organizations? How do these organizations persuade young men to do so? In the age of radicalization, these questions are central to most debates about politics and globalization. Through long-term ethnographic fieldwork in various conflict settings,…

A new issue of Genocide Studies and Prevention is out, with contributions of network members. Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal (GSP) is the official journal of The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS). IAGS is a global, interdisciplinary, non-partisan organization that seeks to further research and teaching about the nature, causes, and consequences of genocide,…

By Mary Fulbrook. A single word—”Auschwitz”—is sometimes used to encapsulate the totality of persecution and suffering involved in what we call the Holocaust. Yet focusing on a single concentration camp, however horrific the scale of crimes committed there, leaves an incomplete story, truncates a complex history and obscures the continuing legacies of Nazi crimes. Mary…