In this impressive book, Edward S. Herman and David Peterson examine the uses and abuses of the word “genocide.” They argue persuasively that the label is highly politicized and that in the United States it is used by the government, journalists, and academics to brand as evil those nations and political movements that in one way or another interfere with the imperial interests of U.S. capitalism. Thus the word “genocide” is seldom applied when the perpetrators are U.S. allies (or even the United States itself), while it is used almost indiscriminately when murders are committed or are alleged to have been committed by enemies of the United States and U.S. business interests. One set of rules applies to cases such as U.S. aggression in Vietnam, Israeli oppression of Palestinians, Indonesian slaughter of so-called communists and the people of East Timor, U.S. bombings in Serbia and Kosovo, the U.S. war of “liberation” in Iraq, and mass murders committed by U.S. allies in Rwanda and the Republic of Congo. Another set applies to cases such as Serbian aggression in Kosovo and Bosnia, killings carried out by U.S. enemies in Rwanda and Darfur, Saddam Hussein, any and all actions by Iran, and a host of others. With its careful and voluminous documentation, close reading of the U.S. media and political and scholarly writing on the subject, and clear and incisive charts, The Politics of Genocide is both a damning condemnation and stunning exposé of a deeply rooted and effective system of propaganda aimed at deceiving the population while promoting the expansion of a cruel and heartless imperial system.

The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary, Condensed Edition is an abbreviated version of the classic work first published in 1981 and revised and expanded in 1994. It includes a new historical overview, and retains and sharpens its focus on the persecution of the Jews. Through a meticulous use of Hungarian and many other sources, the book explains in a rational and empirical context the historical, political, communal, and socioeconomic factors that contributed to the unfolding of this tragedy at a time when the leaders of the world, including the national and Jewish leaders of Hungary, were already familiar with the secrets of Auschwitz. The Politics of Genocide is the most eloquent and comprehensive study ever produced of the Holocaust in Hungary. In this condensed edition, Randolph L. Braham includes the most important revisions of the 1994 second edition as well as new material published since then. Scholars of Holocaust, Slavic, and East-Central European studies will find this volume indispensable.

How did a powerful concept in international justice evolve into an inequitable response to mass suffering? For a term coined just seventy-five years ago, genocide has become a remarkably potent idea. But has it transformed from a truly novel vision for international justice into a conservative, even inaccessible term? The Politics of Annihilation traces how the concept of genocide came to acquire such significance on the global political stage. In doing so, it reveals how the concept has been politically contested and refashioned over time. It explores how these shifts implicitly impact what forms of mass violence are considered genocide and what forms are not. Benjamin Meiches argues that the limited conception of genocide, often rigidly understood as mass killing rooted in ethno-religious identity, has created legal and political institutions that do not adequately respond to the diversity of mass violence. In his insistence on the concept’s complexity, he does not undermine the need for clear condemnations of such violence. But neither does he allow genocide to become a static or timeless notion. Meiches argues that the discourse on genocide has implicitly excluded many forms of violence from popular attention including cases ranging from contemporary Botswana and the Democratic Republic of Congo, to the legacies of colonial politics in Haiti, Canada, and elsewhere, to the effects of climate change on small island nations. By mapping the multiplicity of forces that entangle the concept in larger assemblages of power, The Politics of Annihilation gives us a new understanding of how the language of genocide impacts contemporary political life, especially as a means of protesting the social conditions that produce mass violence.

More than sixty million people have been victims of genocide in the twentieth century alone, including recent casualties in Bosnia and Rwanda. Herbert Hirsch studies repetitions of large-scale human violence in order to ascertain why people in every histo

Beginning with the negotiations that concluded with the unanimous adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide on December 9, 1948, and extending to the present day, the United States, Soviet Union/Russia, China, United Kingdom, and France have put forth great effort to ensure that they will not be implicated in the crime of genocide. If this were to fail, they have also ensured that holding any of them accountable for genocide will be practically impossible. By situating genocide prevention in a system of territorial jurisdiction; by excluding protection for political groups and acts constituting cultural genocide from the Genocide Convention; by controlling when genocide is meaningfully named at the Security Council; and by pointing the responsibility to protect in directions away from any of the P-5, they have achieved what can only be described as practical impunity for genocide. The Politics of Genocide is the first book to explicitly demonstrate how the permanent member nations have exploited the Genocide Convention to isolate themselves from the reach of the law, marking them as "outlaw states."

David B. MacDonald is Senior Lecturer in Political Studies at the University of Otago, New Zealand.

"In this brilliant expose of great power's lethal industry of lies, Edward Herman and David Peterson defend the right of us all to a truthful historical memory."--JOHN PILGER, journalist and filmmaker.