1st Edition
A Modern History of Forgotten Genocides and Mass Atrocities
This is the first textbook of its kind to amass cases of genocide and other mass atrocities across the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries that have largely been pushed to the periphery of Genocide Studies or “forgotten” altogether.
Divided into four thematic sections – Genocide and Imperialism; War and Genocide; State Repression, Military Dictatorships, and Genocide; and Human-Caused Famine, Attrition, and Genocide – A Modern History of Forgotten Genocides and Mass Atrocities covers five continents, including case studies from Biafra, Yemen, Argentina, Russia, China, and Bengal. They range from the French conquest of Algeria in the mid-nineteenth century to the Yazidi genocide perpetrated by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria between 2014 and 2017, and show that at times of rising authoritarianism, military conquest, and weaponization of hunger, lines between what is war and what is genocide are increasingly blurred. By including genocides and mass atrocities that are often overlooked, this volume is crucial to the ongoing debates about whether “this atrocity or that one” amounts to genocide.
By including key points, events, terms, and critical questions throughout, this is the ideal textbook for undergraduate students who study genocide, mass atrocities, and human rights across the globe.
Part 1: Genocide and Imperialism Introduction
1. The Genocidal French Conquest of Algeria, 1830-1847
William Gallois
2. Assimilation and Dispossession: Cultural Genocide of the Ainu
Esther Brito
3. The First Genocide of the 20th Century
Matthias Häussler
Part 2: War and Genocide Introduction
4. Biafra and the Politics of Naming Genocide
Karen E. Smith
5. The Yezidi Genocide: An Evolution of Harm
Chamundeeswari Kuppuswamy and Kofi Addo
6. A Hierarchy of Political Violence: Yemen and the Question of Genocide
Jeffrey S. Bachman
Part 3: State Repression, Military Dictatorships, and Genocide Introduction
7. The Role of the 1972 Genocide in Burundi and Its Ramification in the Great Lake Region
Claudine Kuradusenge-McLeod
8. Genocide in Argentina: Social, Political and Legal Struggles to Frame State Crimes During the Last Military Dictatorship
Soledad Catoggio
9. Politics, Class, and Genocide: El Salvador and Colombia in Hemispheric Context
Adam Jones
Part 4: Human-Caused Famine, Attrition, and Genocide Introduction
10. Starvation, Dehumanization, and Genocide: Moscow’s Imperialism and the Ukrainian Holodomor, 1932-1933
Kristina Hook
11. Framing Famine British Colonialism and Bengal
Prerna Bakshi
12. China's Great Famine
Guo Jian
13. Genocide by Attrition of the Nuba Mountains People (1989-mid 1990s)
Samuel Totten
Biography
Jeffrey S. Bachman is an Associate Professor at American University, USA. He is the author of The Politics of Genocide: From the Genocide Convention to the Responsibility to Protect (2022) and The United States and Genocide: (Re)Defining the Relationship (2017), and editor of Genocide Studies: Pathways Ahead (2024) and Cultural Genocide: Law, Politics, and Global Manifestations (2019).
Esther Brito is a PhD student and adjunct instructor at the American University School of International Service, USA, specializing in mass violence and gender. She is also a fellow in the War, Conflict & Global Migration think tank of the Global Research Network.
