Perpetrator Studies Network

Books

Rwanda After Genocide: Gender, Identity and Post-Traumatic Growth

By Caroline Williamson Sinalo. In the 1994 Rwanda genocide, around 1 million people were brutally murdered in just thirteen weeks. This book offers an in-depth study of posttraumatic growth in the testimonies of the men and women who survived, highlighting the ways in which they were able to build a new, and often enhanced, way…

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Propaganda and the Genocide in Indonesia: Imagined Evil

By Saskia E. Wieringa and Nursyahbani Katjasungkana. In Indonesia, the events of 1st October 1965 were followed by a campaign to annihilate the Communist Party and its alleged sympathisers. It resulted in the murder of an estimate of one million people – a genocide that counts as one of the largest mass murders after WWII – and…

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Perpetrating Selves: Doing Violence, Performing Identity

By Clare Bielby and Jeffrey Stevenson Murer. This volume explores violent perpetration in diverse forms from an interdisciplinary and transnational perspective. From National Socialist perpetration in the museum, through post-terrorist life writing to embodied performances of perpetration in cosplay, the collection draws upon a series of historical and geographical case studies, seen through the lens…

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Understanding Willing Participants: Milgram’s Obedience Experiments and the Holocaust

By Nestar Russell. Horrified by the Holocaust, social psychologist Stanley Milgram wondered if he could recreate the Holocaust in the laboratory setting. Unabated for more than half a century, his (in)famous results have continued to intrigue scholars. Based on unpublished archival data from Milgram’s personal collection, volume one of this two-volume set introduces readers to…

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Talaat Pasha: Father of Modern Turkey, Architect of Genocide

By Hans-Lukas Kieser. Talaat Pasha (1874–1921) led the triumvirate that ruled the late Ottoman Empire during World War I and is arguably the father of modern Turkey. He was also the architect of the Armenian Genocide, which would result in the systematic extermination of more than a million people, and which set the stage for a…

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The Rise of Organised Brutality. A Historical Sociology of Violence

By Siniša Malešević. Challenging the prevailing belief that organised violence is experiencing historically continuous decline, this book provides an in-depth sociological analysis that shows organised violence is, in fact, on the rise. Malešević demonstrates that violence is determined by organisational capacity, ideological penetration and micro-solidarity, rather than biological tendencies, meaning that despite pre-modern societies being exposed…

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Täterhandeln im Nationalsozialismus. Ein Unterrichtsmodell zum historischen Lernen über die Shoah

By Eva Lettermann. Die Autorin setzt sich sowohl fachwissenschaftlich, fachdidaktisch als auch familienbiografisch mit individuellem Täterhandeln im Nationalsozialismus auseinander. Die Motivation hierzu war die kritische Aufarbeitung der Biografie ihres Großonkels, eines NS-Verbrechers in den besetzten Niederlanden. Aufbauend auf den theoretischen Erkenntnissen konzipiert die Autorin ein Unterrichtsmodell zum historischen Lernen über die Shoah für den Geschichtsunterricht…

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War Crimes Trials in the Wake of Decolonization and Cold War in Asia, 1945-1956

Kerstin von Lingen (ed.). This book investigates the political context and intentions behind the trialling of Japanese war criminals in the wake of World War Two. After the Second World War in Asia, the victorious Allies placed around 5,700 Japanese on trial for war crimes. Ostensibly crafted to bring perpetrators to justice, the trials intersected…

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Social Aspects of Memory: Stories of Victims and Perpetrators from Bosnia-Herzegovina

By Alma Jeftic. Social Aspects of Memory presents a compelling study of how ordinary people remember war events. Focusing on the divided city of Sarajevo during the Bosnian War, the book adopts a unique approach, looking at how perpetrators and victims (as well as new generations) manage in the aftermath. Drawing on the author’s own empirical…

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Holocaust Perpetrators of the German Police Battalions: The Mass Murder of Jewish Civilians, 1940-1942

By Ian Rich. Holocaust Perpetrators of the German Police Battalions is the first comprehensive English-language study of the structures and actions of German Police battalions in Poland and Ukraine between 1940 and 1942. Using these case studies, Ian Rich draws attention to the actions and motivations of individual lower-ranking policemen who participated in the mass…

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