Recommend Good Books on Genocide

[Landis]

If you don't mind reading subtitles, and playing 12 videos this is a really good movie about the soviet revolution, and the horrors of new tyrants, and the loss of freedom and liberty as it existed in Russia as the Bolsheviks took power.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FNPqcQgpCJg

 

[Sam Cade]

The Jewish people are not a race but rather identified by their religious beliefs. In Europe, they were Caucasian, just like Germans.

*coff coff*


http://forward.com/articles/155742/jews-are-a-race-genes-reveal/?p=all

Ostrer has devoted his career to investigating these extended family trees, which help explain the genetic basis of common and rare disorders. Today, Jews remain identifiable in large measure by the 40 or so diseases we disproportionately carry, the inescapable consequence of inbreeding. He traces the fascinating history of numerous “Jewish diseases,” such as Tay-Sachs, Gaucher, Niemann-Pick, Mucolipidosis IV, as well as breast and ovarian cancer. Indeed, 10 years ago I was diagnosed as carrying one of the three genetic mutations for breast and ovarian cancer that mark my family and me as indelibly Jewish, prompting me to write “Abraham’s Children.”

 

[Ignition Override]

ilbob: The land we now call Germany, depending on the actual borders around the highly-fragmented kingdoms, dukedoms, free imperial cities etc back then lost between one third and one half of the population during the Thirty Years War, from 1618-1648, as you might know.
Religion was the pretext for many foreign armies (even the Swedes) to invade.

In the 1700s, Poland basically vanished between the incursions of the Prussians and Russians.
I doubt that those invasions are labeled genocide, but the short/long-term affects were not much different with pillaged animals, crops/homes burned, mass starvation and disease, all added to raping and executions during the Thirty Years' War.

 

[sdj]

http://www.amazon.com/Shake-Hands-Devil-Failure-Humanity/dp/0786715103/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368671167&sr=8-1&keywords=romeo+dallaire

 

[monotonous_iterancy]

Another excellent book by Anne Applebaum is Iron Curtain: the Crushing of Eastern Europe. It details how the Soviets instituted stalinism in Eastern Europe after WWII. There actually was some armed resistance in the immediate aftermath in Poland that even freed some political prisoners, but ultimately they failed. I highly recommend it as a detailed history, and it appears to cover a wide range of topics.

 

[Elkins45]

Now, whether Africa needs to be more thoroughly armed as a means of preventing that happening will probably be a controversial discussion.

It might be controversial if you were debating the gun banning commies, but I don't know why it would generate any controversy here. The fact that it's a different continent doesn't make the idea of an armed populace being the best defense against genocide and tyranny any less valid. The idea certainly seems pretty well established here on THR.

 

[Sam1911]

It might be controversial if you were debating the gun banning commies, but I don't know why it would generate any controversy here. The fact that it's a different continent doesn't make the idea of an armed populace being the best defense against genocide and tyranny seems pretty well established on THR.

The issues there that spring to my mind are that guns are not somehow magically disbursed equally throughout society, so there is equal armament of all individuals. Rather, they tend to be concentrated in the hands of a few. A firearm, even if it's only worth $20 or $50, in the hands of a person who lives on the equivalent of a dollar a day or so, usually means tomorrow that gun's in the hands of someone else and the recipient now has a bag of rice or some other immediate life necessity that was worth more to them than the ability to defend themselves someday.

Most of us would probably starve or go without medicine for our children rather than give up a gun, but it seems most of the world's truly poor do not have that dedication.

There are tons, and tons, and tons of guns in Africa. That's not quite enough of an answer to stop the violence that is so endemic there.

 

[JustinJ]

It might be controversial if you were debating the gun banning commies, but I don't know why it would generate any controversy here. The fact that it's a different continent doesn't make the idea of an armed populace being the best defense against genocide and tyranny any less valid. The idea certainly seems pretty well established here on THR.

Just dumping guns into a volatile situation with warring factions and tribes doesn't magically make things go well. Guns don't automatically mean the good guys are gona win and when one side in a conflict loses the other will of course take the losing side's weapons. All too often the oppressed get guns, overthrow those in charge and the freedom fighters are now the new opressors but only worse than the last ones. Anybody with a pocket full of cash can buy all sorts of weapons at a somali market. Most of us can only dream about what is available there to anybody with a minimal amount of cash but i wouldn't exactly recomend moving there.

 

[pseudonymity]

The title says genocide, but your list contains massacres that would probably be more of cultural civil war (China, Khmer Rouge in Cambodia).

With respect to small arms specifically, and tactics where personal type arms would matter, probably the best documented examples are here in the US with the mass relocation and slaughter of native tribes in the later half of the 19th century. For a contrasting example showing a much greater difference in armament, see the Spanish invasion of parts of South America in the 16/17th century.

 

[wacki]

The history of the wars in central Europe from about 1200-1700 is replete with lots of genocide from all directions. I am sometimes amazed there was anyone left alive in the Germanies.

Got any favorite books on this ilbob?

 

[ilbob]

Got any favorite books on this ilbob?

As a matter of fact, no. There just is not much written history from that era available, at least none that is readable that I have run across.

 

[ilbob]

Guns don't automatically mean the good guys are gona win and when one side in a conflict loses the other will of course take the losing side's weapons.

You are sort of making a false assumption about there actually being good guys in Africa. For the most part, that has not been the case. It is usually one set of bad guys fighting another set of bad guys.

 

[GEM]

There are scholarly books on genocide. IIRC (don't have the reference handy) - there is usually a progression.

1. Laws against a minority.
2. Attempt to isolate them or remove them.
3. Under extreme stress - a move to genocide

One precondition was that the minority had little ability to defend themselves - or you get a civil war (which can have slaughters embedded).

However, the references are at work.

BTW, the use of race based on frequencies of genetic disorders is ridiculous.

 

[230RN]

I still think the ultimate peace-keeping plan would be to issue a single shot .22 and a brick of ammo to every Earth citizen.

 

[Milamber]

Start with the Bible and go from there. Man is a tribal animal and everyone has the ability to commit genocide. Thats why we frown upon miscegenation.

For a twentieth century view read The War of the World, by N Ferguson. It covers them all in last century that the OP mentioned. Also I thinks its hard for Americans to grasp how interwoven people are in Europe and how community's cross borders. Mr Ferguson gives a good overview for the American reader.

 

[Serenity]

A good movie to watch is Lord of War. It is a not-so-fictional account of arms dealing to the third world, and the consequences (including genocide).

 

[Sam Cade]

BTW, the use of race based on frequencies of genetic disorders is ridiculous.

I think you may have completely misunderstood the gist of the article...or didn't read it.

 

[GEM]

I did and it's ridiculous. The conceptualization of a race based on genetic distributions is still stupid. But it diverts from this thread.

 

[tactikel]

Sometimes a historical fiction can give great perspective versus a non-fiction. Some great reads in this area include: Babi Yar, Treblinka, Shindler's List, Holocost, Killing fields.

 

[Sam Cade]

I did and it's ridiculous.

So it was the former. Gotcha.