Debating Genocide

This book is intended as a concise introduction to a complex field with a large and fast growing scholarly literature. It presents an accessible point of entry into the subject, introducing major debates and the current state of research. Readers and students may extend and deepen their knowledge through the sources indicated in the further reading at chapter ends. It is impossible in a book of this length to do more than choose a number of significant case study examples to illustrate the nature of genocide. These have been selected because they are largely regarded as paradigmatic cases and ones which students are most likely to encounter in their courses. This book aims to help the reader to gain a sense of how genocide developed in specific, significant case study examples. It has been difficult to select which cases to include and which to omit. There have been so many different episodes of mass murder and genocide across the globe that it is not possible to treat them all here. The omission from this book of, among others, the genocides in Indonesia and East Timor, Bangladesh, Burundi, Guatemala, Iraq and Ethiopia does not lessen their significance.