Worse Than War: Genocide, Eliminationism, and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity

by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's books are events. They stir passionate public debate among political and civic leaders, scholars, and the general public because they compel people to rethink the most powerful conventional wisdoms and stubborn moral problems of the day. Worse Than War gets to the heart of the phenomenon, genocide, that has caused more deaths in the modern world than military conflict. In doing so, it challenges fundamental things we thought we knew about human beings, society, and politics. Drawing on extensive field work and research from around the world, Goldhagen explores the anatomy of genocide—explaining why genocides begin, are sustained, and end; why societies support them, why they happen so frequently and how the international community should and can successfully stop them. As a great book should, Worse than War seeks to change the way we think and to offer new possibilities for a better world. It tells us how we might at last begin to eradicate this greatest scourge of humankind.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, War, Holocaust, Military History, Political Science

658 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen is an American author, scholar, and former associate professor of government and social studies at Harvard University, widely known for his groundbreaking and controversial writings on genocide, antisemitism, and moral responsibility. He rose to international prominence with his first major book, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (1996), which argued that the Holocaust was made possible not only by Nazi leadership but by the participation of ordinary Germans who had internalized a deeply rooted “eliminationist antisemitism.” The book, adapted from his doctoral dissertation, won the American Political Science Association’s Gabriel A. Almond Award and the Democracy Prize of the Journal for German and International Politics. It became a bestseller, sparking vigorous debate among historians and the public alike.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, into a Jewish family, Goldhagen grew up in Newton. His father, Erich Goldhagen, a Holocaust survivor and retired Harvard professor, was interned as a child in a Nazi ghetto in Czernowitz. Daniel credits his father’s influence for shaping his intellectual and moral framework, particularly his understanding of Nazism and the Holocaust. Educated entirely at Harvard University, Goldhagen earned his degrees and later served on the faculty for two decades, first as a student and then as a professor.
While in graduate school, Goldhagen was inspired by historian Saul Friedländer’s work to investigate not just how the Holocaust happened, but why ordinary individuals committed such acts. His research in German archives led to his controversial thesis that a unique and virulent form of German antisemitism predisposed ordinary citizens to become willing participants in genocide. Despite sharp criticism from many historians, his work stimulated renewed discussions about individual responsibility, ideology, and moral choice in times of mass violence.
Goldhagen expanded his focus beyond the Holocaust in subsequent books. A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair (2002) explored the Church’s moral and institutional responsibilities during the Nazi era. Worse Than War: Genocide, Eliminationism, and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity (2009) examined genocide as a recurring human phenomenon, offering insights into how such atrocities can be prevented. His later book, The Devil That Never Dies: The Rise and Threat of Global Antisemitism (2013), traced the persistence and global resurgence of antisemitism in contemporary culture and politics.
Goldhagen lives with his wife, Sarah Williams Goldhagen, an architectural historian and critic. His body of work continues to provoke debate, influencing contemporary thought on genocide studies, moral philosophy, and the enduring human struggle against hatred and violence.

Reviews

[Larry Bassett · Rating 3 out of 5]

The concluding chapter of Worse Than War by Daniel Goldhagen is titled “What we can do” rather than “What can we do?” From my wordsmithing point of view, that is a good thing except I might have added an exclamation mark. I would like to think that there is definitively something that we, humanity, can do about genocide. We think of Rwanda where the world watched and did not intervene. Then we think of Iraq, where we did.

Wait a minute! Did you say Iraq? Isn’t that the place where the U.S. charged in, missiles first, in a preventative attack to protect ourselves against weapons of mass destruction and al-Qaida? Genocide was certainly alleged but it was not seen by the U.S. leadership as a reason to jump into Iraq. So, are we talking about doing the right thing for the wrong reason in Iraq? And with genocide is it necessary to step in when the act is being perpetrated or is the following month or year OK? We seem to have a problem deciding quickly if genocide is occurring. Seeing a government killing its own civilians is not necessarily enough.

But wait! Aren’t we stepping up in Libya? Have we done the right thing for the right reason? It seems we may have as far as Daniel Goldhagen is concerned. But what about civil wars? And are we obligated to step into every genocide event? This all seems like making political rather than humanitarian decisions. We are told “no boots on the ground in Libya” while it is evidently OK to have boots on the ground in Pakistan to kill a terrorist leader. Maybe the reason Worse Than War is a ponderous book is that we have a lot to think about and to learn. We are blazing a new trail through some dense undergrowth.
Goldhaven says that the U.S. should have intervened in Iraq to stop the genocide and not for the specious reasons put forward at the time. He would support the intervention in Libya and probably in several other countries as well.

Goldhagen advocates swift and certain punishment for those who undertake eliminationist policies with the death penalty leading the way. He supports putting a dead or alive bounty on those in leadership positions orchestrating genocide. He wants a dissolution of the United Nations and the formation in its place of a United Democratic Nations that would prevent, identify and halt genocide. Genocide would typically be stopped by military action by one or more democratic nations. Genocide always happens in the non-democratic, tyrannical nations. I and most of the developed world oppose the death penalty so that is a problem for me. His fall back is mandatory life sentences – unless of course you work within dead or alive with the emphasis on dead. And the idea of invading other countries is one that the U.S. has overused in my lifetime. The U.S. has not been very responsible with the use of invasion and I am not sure I am ready philosophically to embrace that one. But it does seem like we should have done something in Rwanda.

This book is packed with onerous acts and sometimes convoluted sentences and paragraphs. It took me a good deal of determination as well as six weeks with a rest break in the middle to get through its 600 pages. I stick with my three stars: two with an extra one because the ideas in this book are so important.

If you struggle with heavy, nonfiction books like I do, you just might start out watching the PBS documentary based on the book and some of the Goldhagen presentations that you can find on the internet.

Worse Than War Documentary: http://video.pbs.org/video/1469571951

Daniel Goldhagen Presentation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz6-Ur...

A LOT OF WORDS FOLLOW THAT I WROTE AS I WAS READING THE BOOK. IF YOU HAVE THE PATIENCE AND INTEREST, YOU MIGHT FIND A FEW INTERESTING THINGS HERE AND THERE IN.

Worse Than War by Daniel Goldhagen concludes with an afterword, “Thoughts and Thanks.” To better understand the book, that might be the place to start rather than the place to finish. There is not a bibliography but the footnotes include other related books. However, Goldhagen uses other material as sources of “witnesses” to eliminationist events. He is clear that he does not necessarily agree with the conclusions of other such material. He insists on taking responsibility as well as credit for his conclusions. He has a confidence in his conclusions that others have called hubris. It is certain that masses of scholars and experts are not rallying around Goldhagen and his work.

Goldhagen simultaneously acknowledges that we need more evidence while he provides page after page of evidence that we do have: (p 385)

Although we need more evidence to draw firmly grounded general conclusions for certain eliminator assaults, the substantial existing evidence suggests that, overwhelmingly, ordinary people, moved by their hatreds and prejudices, by their beliefs in victims’ evil or noxiousness, by their conviction that they and others ought to eliminate the victims, support their countrymen, ethnic group members, or village or communal members’ killing, expelling, or brutalizing others – as the Germans did during the Nazi period, as Poles of Jedwabne did , as the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe did regarding ethnic Germans, as British settlers in Kenya did, as Bosnian Serbs did, and as Hutu across Rwanda did. The killers, and those near them in their cities, towns, and villages, and especially those dear to them, constitute mutually supportive eliminationist communities.

From here the books goes into significant detail including examples where the perpetrators of genocide were within a supportive community.

And still it is hard to believe:

From Machete Season The Killers in Rwanda Speak by Jean Hatzfeld:

The principal and the inspector of schools in my district participated in the killings with nail-studded clubs… A priest, the burgomaster, the subprefect, a doctor – they all killed with their own hands. … These well educated people were calm, and they rolled up their sleeves to get a good grip on their machetes.

Yet we refuse to believe.

It is hard to overcome established facts. And that is what Daniel Goldhagen is trying to do with his work on eliminationism. The holocaust is so well studied and documented that most issues seem to be settled facts. Goldhagen has tried to reverse “settled facts” with his holocaust theory in Hitler’s Willing Executioners and has gotten a lot of attention but few converts.

Maybe he just started at the wrong end of the elephant. Maybe he should have written Worse Than War first as the big picture of genocide based on a multitude of examples and then followed up with applying his theories to the holocaust once he had some traction. In Worse Than War he lays out considerable historical information that supports his theories. With the many examples of genocide in the 20th century, he has the help of much empirical evidence to make his case. He takes the position that genocide is systemic and that, as a result, the specific genocides have similar causes and patterns. This list of eliminationist incidents is long and many are well documented.

His biggest shortcoming may be that he is something of a lone wolf. Quite a few footnotes in Worse Than War are references to his own previous work! He gives no evidence of collaboration or cross pollination with other genocide scholars. He is not joined in his efforts to explain the origins of genocide and the ways to prevent future genocides. He is also trying to coin a new phrase, eliminationism, a continuum of which genocide is one extreme point. You do not find others using that phrase. Inventing new terminology can be an ego thing that is often resisted by the establishment.

In Worse than War: Genocide Eliminationism and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity Daniel Goldhagen attacks what he calls ‘eliminationism’ in the world so aggressively that he has been criticized and discounted for his zeal. Beginning in 1997 with the book Hitler’s Willing Executioners, Goldhagen has sharply challenged some of our beliefs about the Holocaust in particular and now genocide. He defines and describes the huge topic of genocide as a continuum of atrocities including transformation, repression, expulsion, prevention of reproduction, and annihilation. He calls these horrors eliminationism, the acts of eliminating a whole people or group. “By any reasonable accounting, mass murder and elimination have been more lethal than war’” asserts Goldhagen who gives statistics to back up that claim. Thus the title Worse Than War.

I was unaware of the controversy that surrounds Goldhagen until I began reading Worse Than War. This is one of those books that will make you wonder “What is true?” We have the commonly accepted explanations of events and then we have this contradictory point of view. From the controversy that surrounds Goldhaven’s work it is clear that there are many well informed and thoughtful people who reject his conclusions. The exchanges have not always been polite.

I have diligently read the first 250 pages (out of 650)of Worse Than War. Goldhagen makes a detailed argument and proof of his conclusions. He provides a wealth of data but it is hard for me to understand where information moves from anecdotal to verifiably factual. The content is complex and has not been presented in the best way for my understanding. The book is ponderous. It would be easy to criticize based on the writing style alone that is convoluted and repetitious. I am putting the book down temporarily because I need a rest from both the subject and the style.

I am temporarily giving the book three stars because the topic is so important and relevant in the 21st century where eliminationism and war seem to be the world’s normal state. If you are interested and concerned about the topic, I encourage you to put Worse Than War on your to-read shelf for further consideration.

Addendum: Maybe if you watch this documentary online, you will want to read the book. But Daniel Goldhagen observed that a picture is worth many more than a thousand words. It might be harder to watch than to read. Let me know if you are moved by this. Think about Libya. Mr. Goldhagen previews what NATO is doing there. We will see how it comes out.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/worse-than-wa...

Addendum but still prior to finishing the book. May 28, 2011

And since most of us are not experts on the subject, we must to some extent make a leap of faith to land on one side of the river bank or the other. Leap of faith is not a very satisfactory method of analysis. Mr. Goldhagen is, by training, a historian. What we are examining here is much more than a historical event. Not only is genocide a thing of history but also a thing of current events. The nearness of the events in Rwanda and Darfur, for example, make it impossible to step back and have a dispassionate view. At the same time, we have hundreds of thousands of witnesses to the current events.

Because this book advances some new ideas, ideas that conflict with some of the ‘facts’ known by many people for many years, I want to find some kind of empirical study here with statistics and charts and graphs. I want to see the psychological and sociological data so I can understand the conclusions of the author. It seems to me that not much of this exists in the book and I am not sure that it exists anywhere but in the mind of the author who obviously has done exhaustive academic work. But, still, it comes down to words and the reader’s decision about the believability of those words. One can take the arguments logically or emotionally. From the controversy that surrounds Goldhagen’s work it is clear that there are many well informed and thoughtful people who reject his conclusions.

In some way this idea of eliminationism seems like it should be approachable with empirical data; could we not interview a large number of people who participated in the described events as a perpetrator, a victim, or an observer? It the suggestion is that is what Mr. Goldhagen has done: but he has not talked directly with the subjects but relied on previous writing and a vast amount of historical data from many archives and direct sources.

The Holocaust is probably the most well studied genocide in recent history. Other events that are listed and described in the book are much more sparsely documented. Because the Holocaust is a historical event rather than a current event, many conclusions have been drawn and accepted over the years. Serious scholars and casual observers have many ‘facts’ that have been in the confirmed and intellectual realm for seventy years. There are many reasons other than scholarship that may make most people hesitant to reject or modify those facts. The people who were actually there are becoming more and more scarce as the years pass. The content and veracity of living witnesses will soon be gone.

Goldhagen makes a detailed argument and proof of his conclusions. He provides a wealth of data but it is hard for me to understand where information moves from anecdotal to verifiably factual. The book is ponderous in size and complexity. Goldhagen rejects some of the time-tested ‘facts’ in a dismissive and disrespectful manner. In some way this is a contest of competing ‘obvious’ facts. Facts that are so self evident that they do not even require proof. Goldhagen does appear to make an effort to go back and dispassionately examine some of the background assumptions. He then provides a verbal summary of the contradictory conclusions.

[Mikey B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

An immensely important book that convincingly demonstrates that the 20th century’s worst features are genocide or as Mr. Goldhagen states – wars against humanity that feature the killing and dislocation of an entire group. That group can be ethnic, religious or hi-lighted by any set of features.

In the 20th century millions were murdered starting in Turkey and ending in Bosnia and Kosovo at the end of the century. Mr. Goldhagen also cites little known or forgotten atrocities like the Herero in Africa at the beginning of the century and the Kikuyu by the British in Kenya. One aspect that became more apparent in recent genocides in Rwanda and Bosnia-Kosovo is the willingness of the perpetrators to commit mass murder. Mr. Goldhagen – and I believe correctly – points out that the perpetrators – the executioners – did this because they wanted to. They were not banal or automatons who were merely following orders and commands from government or authority figures. Mr Goldhagen extends this to all genocides. He also links the mass rape that frequently occurs as a way of sterilizing future generations of the group being persecuted.

These genocides were planned and there was no problem finding willing participants to execute the murderous deeds. And murderous they were; the book overflows with words like “slaughter” and “exterminate” often accompanied by gruesome details which illustrate that these were acts committed by sometimes eager participants convinced of the righteousness of their cause. There were several times when I had to pause in the reading of this book and glance at the peaceful and sane world around me.

Mr. Goldhagen examines the regimes around genocide from right-wing dictatorships to communist ones which attempt to mould or remove individuals and entire groups who “impede” their future utopia. The tyrants who committed the genocides in this book had a very disturbing world view despite being politically astute.

I did take issue with using Harry Truman for being a mass murderer and placing him beside the likes of Stalin, Pol Pot and Hitler. Truman was a reasonable fellow who wanted the long war to end.

Also the book can be repetitive; some examples are used over and over. If shortened, it could have been far more effective.

Nevertheless it is very worthwhile, though emotionally draining. Mr. Goldhagen also scores points in stating that the U.N. needs re-structuring to be effective. It has to move beyond the colonial and imperialist world that it was originally mandated for and react to the current day. It needs to focus much more on human rights rather than sovereign rights. Sovereign rights merely give tyrants the ability to massacre their own people.

[Carolyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had extremely mixed feelings about this book, from start to finish. Goldhagen is a controversial writer and a unique thinker, and he makes some important points. Unfortunately, his single-mindedness and uncompromising views on certain topics made a lot of these important points and good intentions fall apart.

When I first read criticisms of Goldhagen's work, I assumed that readers who disliked the book went into it with different expectations about the style and format than what it turned out to be. It is not non-fiction written in prose style at all, it is composed in a research format, so each section lays out a central concept or thesis, what points the author will use to support it, then the following pages hit each of those bullet points, followed by a summation at the end of that section. When readers described Goldhagen as presenting "circular logic," I presumed they were referring to the circular nature of the writing. Unfortunately, after reading, that does not seem to be the case. In many sections of the book, the author contradicts his own stated principles, or at best applies them in a hypocritical manner.

For example, he is deeply devoted to the idea that most participants in the killing, torture, expulsion and other atrocities of the Holocaust were not only willing to do so but enthusiastic. (He wrote another entire book on just this subject.) He goes so far as to insist upon referring to the perpetrators simply as Germans rather than as Nazis. He cites examples from his research and anecdotes that he believes discredit the many mitigating factors for everyday Germans (and others who participated in the violence). To accept his point of view is to believe that no German took part for any reason other than their own anti-Semitism and desire to act out viciously. According to this author, there were no perpetrators who took part because they feared retribution against themselves or their families, because they feared losing their jobs (bureaucratic, law enforcement, etc.) in the wake of years of German economic hardship, because of social pressure or influences, or for any other reason. He insists that everyone who took part in the Holocaust did so 100% willingly, knowing the consequences of their actions, and with great relish, and that the German people were willing to do so because of their societal, nationalistic beliefs and mores.

However, when discussing international responses to eliminationism, and how outsiders explain or rationalize the horrors that take place, he seems to adopt a different stance on non-German perpetrators. The book includes very graphic incidents from the Tutsi on Hutu slaughter in Burundi in the 1970s and the Hutu on Tutsi atrocities in Rwanda in the 1990s. This includes contrived famine, extreme sexual violence, and literal butchery on a mass scale. The attacks were a daily business, one perpetrator describing the machete killings as going from "9:00 am to 4:30 pm" as though it were a shift in an office. The politically and racially motivated Khmer Rouge expulsions and killings in Cambodia shared many of the same characteristics. The survivors' accounts from all of these which Goldhagen relayed would turn the stomach of any decent human being. But the author insists that an outside viewer who sees these perpetrators and their actions as barbaric is plainly racist. I don't see how one can find fault in the German perpetrators of the Holocaust and blame it on their personal natures, but cannot apply the same standard to an African or Asian perpetrator. Purposefully starving someone to death or cutting out a woman's reproductive organs or impaling a non-combatant on bamboo is just as bad as starving, sterilizing or gassing a European. It is absurd to apply one set of standards and labels to Nazis but then to dance around the Khmer, Tutsi and Hutu perpetrators in an attempt to not sound racist.

I also take issue with Goldhagen's proposed resolution to the issue. His anger and disgust that such atrocities are often allowed to start and continue by isolationist outsiders is justifiable and hard to disagree with. But his over-simplified presentation of the interventions that have occurred is mind boggling, and his suggestion for discouraging and stopping eliminationist violence is quite amoral in itself.

I was ready to stop reading the book at about the 40% mark when Goldhagen eviscerates world leaders (particularly American ones) for not stepping in to stop eliminationism in Rwanda, Darfur, and for not acting sooner in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was not his desire to see these assaults swiftly ended that bothered me, but rather his ridiculous and cavalier treatment of our military interventions in Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan. He states that the public's reaction to 1993's "Black Hawk Down" battle in Mogadishu was overblown and caused a racist, isolationist attitude that prevented our intervention in 1994 in Rwanda. He asks why an American soldier's life is worth more than an African's. It isn't. But why are 18 American soldiers worth less than 18 African lives? What kind of person would watch 18 soldiers die, then witness their families' continued torture as the soldiers' bodies were mutilated and disrespected in the streets of the city they were sent to help, and not react with anger? Goldhagen lauds Operation Enduring Freedom as an appropriate, swift, and effective response to the Taliban's oppression in Afghanistan and Al Qaeda's genocidal international terror campaign. Well, thanks for the vote of confidence, Mr. Goldhagen, but the families and friends of the 3,261 (as of today) coalition troops KIA would probably beg to differ on your proclamation that the oppressive regime was toppled in a matter of weeks at relatively small cost to the intervening forces. As a matter of fact, two US troops and three Afghani police were murdered TODAY by a "fellow" Afghani police officer. My husband and his fellow soldiers are currently deployed to the war you seem to think we won twelve years ago. You are either grotesquely uninformed about the true toll of the war in Afghanistan or you are unbelievably callous.


The author's solution for stopping eliminationist assaults (aside from his daydream version of war) is an international sort of for-profit vigilantism. He asserts that if perpetrators (including all from the Head of State to the bureacrats to the elected officials to the police officers and military members) are held unquestionably accountable for any eliminationist acts and guilty by association, and that punishment is meted out on this premise, that future atrocities will be deterred. He suggests the application of "justice" in the way that it has been applied to pirates in the past, as enemies of humanity, is all that is due in cases of genocide, and that there should be a burden of proof that translates to "guilty until proven innocent." Yet in the beginning of the book, Goldhagen condemns President Truman for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He asserts that these were calculated mass murders, and that Truman should therefore be granted the title of Mass Murderer along with the likes of Stalin, Mao, Pot, and Hitler. He argues that the motivation is irrelevant to the label for the act. He clearly classifies the Bataan Death March and the Rape of Nanking as brutal eliminationist assaults. (Truly, he barely scratched the surface of what was done to Filipinos, Americans, Chinese, and even to Japanese citizens, but he concretely places these acts along with the other genocides in the book.) Logic would follow that, based on the author's hardline plan of action against eliminationism, anything and everything should have been done to stop the Japanese in their tracks. Except, apparently, nuclear bombing.

Again, his conclusion to this very same book asserts that the international community (particularly democracies, including those in which capital punishment is illegal) should adopt a "wanted dead or alive" approach to known or suspected perpetrators in ongoing eliminationist campaigns. He states that the application of due process is unnecessary as well as cost and time prohibitive in the cases of these perpetrators, and that monetary rewards should be issued for their capture and/or assassination. So, adopting a financially motivated, "pirates, ye be warned," witch-hunt style of international intervention to stop an eliminationist campaign is acceptable and desirable, but a strategic (and granted, catastrophic) series of bombing is a "war on humanity?" Whether or not one agrees with the use of nuclear weapons in WWII or not, I find it extremely difficult to reconcile this train of thought.

The biggest issue for me was that the take-home message gets muddled because of Goldhagen's extreme perspectives and opinions on certain issues and events. The author takes a singular interest in the plight of the Jewish population, focusing almost entirely upon their persecution under the Nazi regime and during other episodes throughout history. I do not intend in any way to diminish the suffering of this religious group by what I am saying, but I feel that Goldhagen's almost myopic focus on this and his enthusiasm in pointing the finger at the rest of the world takes away from what I think his message is, somewhere deep inside: that genocide and eliminationism are global problems, and that any ethnic, religious, political, cultural or national group can fall prey. He devotes a great deal of energy to criticizing the Catholic and Orthodox churches in Europe and their actions or inactions during the Holocaust. He conveniently glosses over the concerted Nazi efforts to close down Catholic schools, discredit and frame priests and nuns who spoke out against the regime and distributed anti-Nazi encyclicals from the Pope and sermons by German Cardinals. He doesn't mention the Inquisition-Style torture, the prosectution for "immorality" on fictitious charges, or the number of priests who were murdered themselves. He completely omits from his list of eliminations the death or expulsion of around 3 million Irish Catholics at the hands of the Protestant British, capitalizing on the potato blight. The British government used contrived starvation, disease, expulsion and forced religious conversion to eliminate the "undesirables" over the course of a few years. The consequences of this and other brutal British policies resonate today with the violence in Northern Ireland. But not a word from Goldhagen on this. Goldhagen gives the same lax treatment to the Polish, giving great emphasis to the Poles who willingly killed or drove out their Jewish neighbors, while writing almost nothing about their courageous Resistance movement. Goldhagen's mention of the Communist party members, homosexuals, and mentally ill killed under the Third Reich makes it sound as though their lives were a comparative vacation. He focuses a great deal on the current Political Islamic stance on Judaism and anti-Israeli sentiments, but fails to mention countries in Africa where being gay is legally prosecuted and punishable by death. I understand that for Goldhagen to hit upon every instance and victim of eliminationism would be impossible if he wanted to keep the book at a readable, non-encyclopedic length. But I do feel that his personal emotions took some of the scholarly merit away from this piece. I suppose in summary what I am attempting to get across is the narrow focus on one religious group undermines the true nature of genocide, eliminationism and hate as human threats, not as threats limited to one geographic area, religion, or ethnic group. I'll end with this fairly famous quote, as translated on the Holocaust Memorial in Boston, MA, which I think gets to the root of the issue pretty concisely.

They came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up.
---Martin Niemoeller

[Tony · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book started well enough. The author argues convincingly that genocide is the extreme end of "eliminationism" the process by which an undesired group of people are expelled or otherwise neutralised within a territory or society. By "neutralised" I mean that they are prevented from breeding (sterilisation) or that their culture and language etc are destroyed. (I explain this because the author also disparages using euphemisms and again I agree with him.) So far so good.

But what disturbs me about this book is its intellectual dishonesty. Whereas the author "cooly evaluates" he dismisses any view contrary to his as "pseudo-sicientific"; it is OK for him to "safely assume" but he castigates others for unsubstantiated cliches. The book is also poorly edited; it is verbose and repetitive, stuffed with noisy, tiresome, distracting, unnecessary adjectives. (I suspect that it was edited by the author's wife which may explain this; it's like asking your best friend what he thinks of your business idea). The other thing I wandered about is why no mention of Israel's emlinationist policies towards the Palestinians?That would have required more intellectual honesty than the author is capable of.

This is pop history at its worse. The author however is correct in writing that we need a detailed scientific investigation of the cause and conditions of genocide. Unfortunately this is not it.

[Gordon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Worse Than War gave the genocide issue a new, rational basis for me to consider. The scholarship was deep, and yet the book was surprisingly readable. Some of my take-aways were:
--The broader concept of "eliminationism" (genocide plus relocation, cleansing, etc.) shows how genocide is a subset of activities aimed at achieving a political end
--Eliminationist politicians today operate within a "politics of impunity"
--The United Nations has been completely ineffectual in curtailing genocide
--The few effective actions against genocide/eliminationism outside the UN have occurred only because of intense media pressure
--A new organization is needed with the power, mandate and resources to end eliminationism

The subject is so disturbing that many readers may not be attracted to this book. But to me, it is equally disturbing to think that, without action, the 21st century might see the continuation of this stain on humanity.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Hannah Arendt too much to fully agree with this book. At the idea of democracy as the preventative of all genocide is simplistic at best. This is an exhaustive, significant book, and I appreciated Goldhagen's care and commitment, and particularly his analysis of what he defines as the five major types of cruelty (I think there are more than he lists, but it's certainly a start), yet this book felt needlessly obtuse and lacking in larger historical perspective. Good, but flawed.

[Austin Bowman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Worse Than War is not for the faint of heart, but with that said I recommend it, albeit with reservations. The majority of the book is spent doing an exhaustive, and exhausting, history of genocide as well as all the areas/facets of the subject. It is extremely thorough, almost to the point of being obtuse in some areas. Overall, the book dives deep into a subject matter of growing importance and provides a different perspective to a very complex issue.

With that said, I do have major reservations about the book and as such I cannot give it any more than 3 stars. First and foremost, the writing is rambling, needlessly complex, and often repetitive. I found myself on numerous occasions rereading sections because I couldn’t follow the initial point Goldhagen was making. After making headway into the book, however, I stopped such rereading because within a page or so he would repeat himself (almost word for word). Second, he seemed needlessly antagonistic towards other competing analysis of genocide. While much of the criticism is warranted at times it seems to simply be spiteful. Furthermore, he continually dismisses other conclusions as lacking in merit but, especially towards the end when discussing his proposed solutions, he engages in the same reasoning he so despises in others. Third, in many instances Goldhagen needlessly invents new terms: eliminationist (genocide), exterminationalist (mass murder), Political Islam (Islamism), etc. Again, some of these distinctions deserve merit, but others serve only to further obstruct the points he is ultimately trying to make.

My main critique, however, deals with his proposed solutions. Goldhagen proposes interventionism whenever eliminationist policies are being carried out. Flying in the face of the idea of “innocent until proven guilty,” he immediately ascribes guilt and would require those who are charged to prove their innocence. Further problematic, one of the proposed solutions is instituting economic sanctions on states engaging in genocide. Really? Throughout the book he references North Korea and the regime’s human rights abuses—perhaps someone should remind Mr. Goldhagen that sanctions have been imposed on North Korea for a decade and the abuse continues. I find it hard to believe economic sanctions would stop perpetrators, just like the “radio messages” and “leaflets dropped from airplanes,” considering he spent half the book talking about how perpetrators want to engage in such behavior (often utilizing extremely cruel methods).

Another solution is for democratic countries to ostracize countries not fulfilling democratic ideals, but of course China and Russia were immediately allowed exemptions because Goldhagen is breaking his own “rules” but others aren’t allowed the same leeway. The main issue I take with ostracizing countries until elites/tyrants willingly give up power is that it simply won’t work. How Nations Fail clearly laid out the staying power of institutions, especially the bad ones because in such states elites have clear incentives to stay in power.

Finally, if all else fails Goldhagen proposes military intervention saying that it would be a cheap and easy option. Cheap? Perhaps depending on the metrics used. After repeated adventurism abroad, and the demonstrated lack of ability to engage in successful nation building I find the notion of deposing tyrants and bringing about regime change a hard pill to swallow. Goldhagen waves his hand and says such interventions can be accomplished easily—especially with a coalition of forces—but in The Utility of Force General Sir Rupert Smith clearly laid how difficult such coalitions are to manage and the limited goals they can achieve given the shifting nature of political and military goals.

Goldhagen is a historian, and Worse Than War is at its best when dealing with history because when the focus shifts to policy the book stumbles to the point of absurdity.

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a given that book on genocide (or "eliminationism", as he dubs it) by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen is going to be provocative. The last chapter of this book certainly is, as Goldhagen advocates non-stop of direct intervention by the democratic nations of the world into the internal affairs of those tyrannies most likely to use genocide as a tool. He (correctly) skewers the United Nations as a genocide enabler.

I just finished teaching an upper-level history course on Genocide in the 20th Century, and I have to say, this book is a clear, exhaustive, imaginative, devastating examination of the phenomenon, from its causes to its ultimate conclusion. Goldhagen correctly points out that genocide has ceased only when (1) those imposing it have achieved their aims or (2) those governments imposing it have been toppled by war, war waged for purposes other than stopping genocide (World War II Germany and Japan, Iraq).

The writing is dense but always lucid. I noticed in one or two other reviews some carping about his repetitiveness on certain themes, which seems to me to miss at least part of his point. Genocide is not fundamentally different from incident to incident. I would compare Goldhagen's so-called repetitiveness to someone calling "Fire!" to a group of people in a burning building. You don't stop until everyone is aware that (1) the building is indeed on fire and (2) everyone gets out of the building.

An astounding, magisterial work. Highly recommend.

[Bas Kreuger · Rating 1 out of 5]

An almost unreadable book unfortunately. The subject in an important one: genocide as the plague of the 20th (21st?) century. Goldhagen however writes in such a chaotic style that the points he wants to make almost disappear beneath a flood of words and repetitions. Where he illustrates a point, he doesn't limits himself by one example, but uses all 20th century genocides in a row. And he does that repeatedly in the book.
Sometimes you have to read and reread parts to find exactely what he means to say. And that's a pity as Goldhagen certainly has a point where he shows that genocide is almost embarisingly more easy to commit than waging war. The later 20th century examples of Rwanda, Jougoslavia and Darfur show how hesitant the (Western) world is in publicly recognising what is happening as genocide and in stopping it.
The publisher should have been much more forcefull in editing the text and limiting the amount of space for Goldhagen

[Ginny]

I can't rate this book as "liked it." This is an amazing book. It is long and thorough, but the topic is such that you can't say, you liked it. I learned something from this book. This book caused me to question some of the assumptions that I have about the mass killings of the last century.

[Kim Sampson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little extreme in his opinions but an important topic. I enjoyed the historical side and but prefer less rhetoric.

[Kaitlynn Scribner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very long but full of good information, especially for those like myself who apparently live in a bubble and are unaware of the atrocities that occur worldwide.

[Dana *]

nope just not up to the challenge. After reading the same three statements reworded 4 times in the first chapter, i just could not face 400 more pages of over wrought wordplay.

[Paul Taylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

An extremely powerful opening page is followed by 600 less compelling pages. Scholarly? Undoubtedly. Stodgy and indigestible? Definitely.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the third book on democide as a phenomenon that I have read, after Death by Government and Atrocitology. Democides are a pet topic of mine, I even have a separate shelf for them. Upfront, this book gets three stars from me because, after comparing it to the other two, I figured it would be a decent introduction to the topic for an intelligent reader. If you're already familiar with democides, you can still learn from it, but I cannot recommend it. Why, I will explain later on.

Goldhagen explores democides in the broader context of "eliminationist" practices. Democides - he calls them genocides, despite being aware of Rummel and his objection to the common use of that term - are in his view only the peak of eliminationism, such practices that aim at eliminating a certain group, like forced evictions or sterilizations. This is a good insight, but was not enough to carry this hefty book. It would've been good in a book of a hundred pages, or maybe two hundred pages. Not in one with several hundred pages. There are more valuable insights in there, but those also aren't sufficient. Goldhagen criticizes the idea of the "banality of evil", and he does a great job at it, showing on several cases that the participants of democides are often enthusiastic about it and always know what they're doing. He shows that the Nazis weren't special in their use of industrial means of killing, because they simply didn't make such great use of them but rather shot or stabbed most of their victims to death. These kinds of insights could have filled a book half the size of this one. As valuable as they are, they do not carry this book.

What could've carried it would've been historical background to the atrocities Goldhagen is talking about, the way the other two books I mentioned above have them. Goldhagen consciously decided against this style, however, leaving us with a lot of anecdotes, interviews, and reports of various atrocities in Rwanda, Guatemala, Germany, Turkey and so on. Godlhagen does not establish the perpetrators, their ideology, or the goal of their eliminationism. What he throws out are unsystematic bits which are meant to be relevant to whatever is the topic at hand. Had he swallowed his ego, decided against trying to invent the wheel anew and throwing all researchers before him under the bus (including Rummel, who practically invented the comparative study of democides), and written the narratives, we could've had a decent history book, and a worthwhile introduction for those interested in the topic of democide.

His style appealed to me in the beginning, to the point where I compared him favorably to Ludwig von Mises, who was dry, but always exact and as concise as his topic allowed, without ever sounding like he suspended all his emotion and his moral judgement. Later on, Goldhagen let on that he didn't achieve this synthesis at all. Very dry and academic passage are interrupted by overly emotional ones. Goldhagen insists on calling suicide bombers "genocide bombers", although I do not see what is genocidal about blowing up the convoy of an invading force along with yourself. He insists on calling the massacre of Jews in foreign countries by the Nazis "madness abroad", as if they had invented the intended slaughter of a hated group of people abroad, not domestically. Then what did the Soviets have on their mind with the whole international workers revolution? They didn't treat the bosses in their satellite states very well, and had they conquered the rest of the world - which they intended to - they would've massacred the bourgeoisie worldwide. Those are just the two most glaring examples of Goldhagen being

Another big problem was that I just couldn't trust Goldshagens information, and his interpretations even less. I know Rummel and White committed major blunders, but Rummel had to research for over ten years to assemble the information necessary for his books, and he was a pioneer in his field. That he missed a few atrocities (like the Hunger Blockade or the Bengal Famine) and overblew some (like what the Tzars did) is understandable, and no reason for me to doubt his scholarship. White, while not a pioneer, covered an insane amount of history in his book, and is largely self-taught. His mistakes, which were surprisingly few, are excusable, like his ignorance of economics. Both also weaved their facts into a narrative, making it quite easy to detect errors, easier than with Goldhagens approach of forgoing the narrative altogether before you draw conclusions from it. When Goldhagen gives a number of those killed by the USSR of 8 to 20 million, while The Great Terror: A Reassessment is nowhere to be seen in his bibliography, then I get very skeptical of how thorough his research was. Same when he claims that everyone in Germany knew of the death camps, when talking about Auschwitz carried the death sentence and when Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, a far better scholar than him and a native Austrian, said that none of his relatives or friends knew of them. Or, when he says that leaders tend to "boast about their camps", and names the fact that the opening of Dachau was proudly announced in 1933 as evidence. Yes, the opening of the first concentration camps was announced, their existence was no secret, and the Nazis openly boasted about them, but those were concentration camps and not death camps. Lumping these two institutions together is careless, especially when you make strong statements about how all Germans knew about the death camps. Then there is him saying that collective guilt is not a thing, then going on to talk about "the Turks", "the Serbs" and "the Germans" as the perpetrators of genocide for the rest of the book. He also denies that the Holocaust was a "unique" event (any more unique than other genocides), but then goes on to say that only the Nazis committed "madness abroad". Goldhagen simply does not strike me as a trustworthy, thorough or critical scholar, and his attitude, especially his demeaning of his predecessors, doesn't help with that.

All in all, a book with some good thoughts, but too long for me to really recommend. The benefits of reading this just don't justify the investment in time, if you ask me. Especially because the best ideas of Goldhagen are also the most commonsensical, and you can arrive at them yourself. So not an essential read. As an introduction to the topic, it is fine if you remain critical, but it's also "only" fine. If you can get your hands on Rummels or Whites books instead, use one of them.

[Dakota · Rating 1 out of 5]

I could only get 20% through the book.

It starts off with a rather bold claim, and that is President Truman’s use of the atomic bombs was the moral equivalent to Hitler’s extermination campaign. He incorrectly claims Japan was at the verge of surrender when, even upon the emperor’s broadcast that they have surrendered high ranking officials committed suicide, units vowed to continue fighting, and those who accepted defeat felt shame for the surrender and not the loss of the war.

He completely ignores information relating to Operation Downfall and both US and Japanese evaluation on estimated losses. Truman was faced with the decision of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians or the 11 million combined casualty prediction. His goal was to end the bloodshed.
Comparatively, Hitler’s quest was of domination of Europe and the extermination of people he deemed “undesirables”, a man who unarguably wanted more and more blood to spill. Any of this information is either out of ignorance of the subject or cherry picked to support his bias.

This continues to comparing Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Tokyo, and Dresden to global terrorist events such as 9/11.

Additionally, he has the stance that all Germans were Nazis and all Nazis were German, and every German participated in the holocaust due to deeply held violent antisemitic view. He attempts to disprove the counter-argument that many citizens were unknowing, participated out of force or fear, and that even high ranking Nazi members disapproved of events, by acknowledging that that side of the argument exists and proceeds basically avoid the topic all together.

Cannot recommend this book. And dare I say the author.

[E. Kahn · Rating 1 out of 5]

I came into this book without knowing of the author's uh, non-sterling reputation as a historian. I remember reading and enjoying his "Hitler's Willing Executioners" many years ago so if anything I was predisposed in its favor.

The preface should have been the giveaway. Equating the Soviet Gulag prison system to the Nazi death camps is the favorite arrow in the Liberal Hawk's quiver. But Goldhagen fires off every single arrow in that quiver, lumping America's Designated Enemies into a category of genocidal "regimes" (love that word - it just means "government," but it implies so much more) that just need some good ol' Freedom & Democracy imposed down the barrel of an M-16. Let's look at how that project has turned out in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, etc.

In the pursuit of this thesis Goldhagen also ignores the dismal track record of America's allies from South Korea to Israel, as well as (of course) America itself. I could go down the list of cherry-picked data, anecdotal evidence, circular logic and No True Scotsmen that make up the core of this book but that's not going to convince anyone who's been indoctrinated by the Western imperialist project and those who haven't won't need it to see right through this overly long and expensive piece of propaganda.

[Claire Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting analysis of genocide and its effects on people and the world. An interesting read, but flawed in some respects. Firstly, it focuses on the Holocaust more so than any other genocide. I appreciate it’s one of the worst in history but there has also been a lot worse (as he himself states, Rwanda’s genocide actually saw more people killed per day than in Nazi Germany). There was little discussion of Israel’s behaviour towards Arabs in the Middle East, which seemed a purposeful oversight. And then his solutions to the problem ie putting a $1 million bounty on the head of genocidal war criminals; seems a tad OTT in my opinion. I appreciate he’s going for the big question, big solution approach and I get that. But some of it fell a bit flat for me. Worth a read though.

[Silvana Pellegrini Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

En absolut nødvendig bog!

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's bog "Worse than war", Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's bog "Worse than war", beskriver hans grundige forskning, hvor han vender hver sten - graver helt ned til rødderne og motivationen for massenedslagtninger, og udforsker spørgsmål såsom: Hvordan berettiger kulturelle overbevisninger folkedrab blandt grupper af mennesker? Hvorfor har verden været så ineffektiv i at reducere forekomsten af folkemord? Hvad gør folk villige til at slagtes andre?

For mit eget vedkommende, da jeg havde læst bogen for nogle år siden føltes en magtesløshed overfor den verdenspolitiske scene der desværre også den dag i dag ofte dyrker nedarvede fjendebilleder der skaber had, men den giver mig også håb om, at vi ikke glemmer alle de massakre der er sket og stadig foregår, som endog kan være mere grusom og værre end krig.

For mig skabte det følgende tanker samt en ønske om at magthaverne i verden burde læse denne bog:

Vi som mennesker bør også reflektere over, hvilke konsekvenser vores hadretorik kan have, eller kalder os selv uden skyld - eller er vi bare medløbere der tror at andre gør verden til et sted, hvor menneskerettigheder overholdes?

Det oprindelige formål med 1948 "FN-konventionen om forebyggelse af folkemord" var at forhindre historiens gentagelser af nogle af de mest voldsomme handlinger begået af menneskeheden mod sin medmenneske.

Siden ratifikationen af konventionen i 1951 har der været tilfælde af folkedrab, hvor verden bare har stået tavse og kigget på og været vidne til fortsættelsen af en nedslagtning af folk uden at have hverken vilje eller interesseret i at finde midler til at standse massemord.

Derfor lever ”Moderne eliminationist retorik” i bedste velgående. En trosmæssig eller politisk tilgang og verdenssyn, om at en bestemt gruppe mennesker skal udvises eller udryddes.
Danske og udenlandske regeringer blander sig kun i masseudryddelse problematikken og hjælper gerne ofrene, ifald der vil være gevinst at hente (i en eller anden form f.eks. der er olie eller andre mineraler at hente). Og så er det oveni købet for sent, for folkedrabet er allerede i gang.

Der skal kigges udover egen ”andedam”– det nytter ikke hele tiden at undervise og oplyse om I og II WW, eller genudsende eget lands glorificerede nationalistiske historier i forskellige variationer, og gennem nationale medier udgive selekterede nyheder, som programredaktører har udvalgt, og som de mener Natonalbefolkningen kun er interesseret i (ofte på baggrund af, hvad nutidens politikere er interesseret i).

Tal fortæller at i Nazi Tysklands udryddelse 1939-45 var der ca. 13,6 millioner slaviske folk og borgere i Sovjetunionen – 1941-1945: 5,1 million jøder, romaer, uhelbredelige syge, hjemløse, homoseksuelle, Jehovas vidner, andre racer, politiske modstandere m.v. samt ca. 2,8 million kristne polakker.

Som et andet eksempel: I 1975-79 ca. 2,2 millioner tortureret og dræbt af Khmer Rouge samt ca. 1,3 i den Cambodjansk autogenocid – ca. 1,3 millioner blev henrettet for at have en ”forkert politisk mening” i Afghanistan

- og sådan kunne man blive ved med optællinger både før, imellem, samtidig og efter ovennævnte eksempler.

Dog er listen desværre blevet længere frem til i dag – men derfor er det jeg ønsker pointere, at vi også skal huske at koncentrere os om nutiden (efter 1945). Hvis man ser på krige og folkedrab i dag, så har vi intet lært at de seneste verdenskriges folkedrab).
Så jeg vil ønske, at vi snart finder en løsning, der kan ændre fremtiden og virkelig afstå fra at bruge ordets magt for at skabe had. Fordi folkedrab altid starter med et had til nogen vi ikke kan lide, og gerne affødt af nogle vi tror er ”kloge” og som er i stand til at lede os på vej.
At begynde at tænke selvstændigt, i stedet for at lade sig forføre af nogle narcissistiske mennesker, som føler at det er deres opgave her på jorden at dehumanisere og dæmonisere anderledes tænkende mennesker, er i hvert fald ikke vejen. Det vil vi helt bestemt mærke hvis det ramte os selv.

Hvorfor har jeg lyst tik at skrive dette - når jeg selv bor i et fredeligt land?
Fordi jeg selv mener, at historie er godt – også krigsforbrydelser før og efter eller samtidig med I og II WW
- men historien efter den II Verdenskrig er ikke blevet lysere – tværtimod værre – vi har ingen verdenskrige – i hvert fald ikke endnu - men til gengæld har vi stadigvæk noget der er mere skræmmende som opretholder status quo ifm. folkedrab.
I krig mellem lande vidste man tidligere, hvem der var ven og fjende og/eller allierede, og meldte ud med det.
I Folkedrab kan man aldrig vide sig sikker, og dem har der været utallige af siden II WW til i dag, at man burde bruge dem til faktuel og aktuel oplysning her informationsalderen og forårsage gennemskuelighed omkring den farlige tendens til had retorik, som rør sig i samfundet og ind- og udland.
Historien i dag er, at lande/mennesker der begår overgreb og dermed også neglicerer menneskerettigheder, lever i det skjulte i vores århundrede (altså er sværere at få øje på). Det er ikke kun den enkelte person i fysisk forstand der tager en andens liv.– Der er i dag ingen ansigter på, hvilke regeringer der går ind og støtter økonomisk med våben, handelsaftaler eller politiske holdninger – men til gengæld er der mange som ”vasker deres hænder” - stiltiende ser til – og giver eller samtykker med retorikken.

Derfor vil jeg gerne anbefale bogen ”Worse than War” af Daniel Jonah Goldhagen (som jeg læste for 4-5 år siden)

[Caryatid · Rating 1 out of 5]

As others have said.. a boring book, very uneven, very selective, biased. After the condemnation of Truman's justifiable bomb dropping that immediately prompted Hirohito to make a rare speech that halted the war saving many thousands I gave up reading and flipped through the illustrations.
Illustrations obviously chosen for their shock value, pathetic attention seeking. And leaving out the mohammed turban cartoon while including others...very prudent.
An opportunist book if there ever was one but mired so much in words that most will pass it by, fortunately.

[Markos Markowsky · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm torn.
Book is very biased, following agenda rather than facts, picking and choosing importance of different aspects of events according to whims of the author, rather than analysis.
If that book is one of many you have consumed on the subject - pick it up, it provides some great insights and systematic approach that is ver often overlooked.

If it is supposed to be your introduction into the subject, please pick up a different one.

[Fiona · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting topic with some very interesting points to be made. Spoiled a bit by Goldhagen labouring every single point with the same, rather repetitive, list examples. On more than one occaision it was 1 sentence to state the point and a whole page (or more) of listing every single country or leader that it applied too. It got irritating after a while and detracted from the very important things he should have wanted the reader to focus on.

[Lev Traitsetsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

An essential read, especially today, when Isreal committed a genocide in Gaza, to which, most liberal democracies reacted with the usual inaction and apologism. Not to mention the ongoing genocide in Darfur, where people are suffering from famine, to which the author often refers to - 16 years after this book was published. Albeit, the book can be incredibly difficult to read sometimes, for obvious reasons.

[Antonio Vena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una stella in meno perché ogni tanto è ridondante, ripetitivo il che danneggia la tesi centrale.
Rimane un saggio importante sulle tendenze genocide ed eliminazioniste, veri sogni neri della politica.

[Lance Grabmiller · Rating 1 out of 5]

There is a ton of great information and analysis here, but I hate almost everything about how it was written. Cannot stand long paragraphs that are nothing but a string of questions and the organization of the ideas meant endless repetitions that didn't work to aid in understanding.

[Parę słów o książkach · Rating 3 out of 5]

6/10

Liczyłam, że ten tytuł będę mogła wpisać do bibliografii pracy magisterskiej, bo nie ukrywam, że jest on tematycznie powiązany, ale trochę się zawiodłam. Za dużo przemyśleń własnych nt ludobójstwa, za mało faktów.

[V. Lyons · Rating 1 out of 5]

Biased. Had to put this one down.

[Ailith Twinning · Rating 5 out of 5]

The only thing I have to add is that you should also read Chomsky .

[Marsilla Dewi-Baruch · Rating 2 out of 5]

So much of a thesis. Gotta put it into shelf with category of uninteresting book.

[Jason · Rating 1 out of 5]

Could not finish. Excessively repetitive. The author’s viewpoint on certain aspects of genocide, preached from an incredibly high ivory tower, was quite unappealing and annoying.