Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur () is a 2007 book by Ben Kiernan, who for thirty years has studied genocide and crimes against humanity. In "Blood and Soil" Kiernan examines outbreaks of mass violence, including worldwide colonial exterminations and twentieth-century case studies, particularly the Armenian genocide, the Nazi Holocaust, Stalin's mass murders, and the Cambodian and Rwandan genocides. The book won the 2008 gold medal for the best book in History awarded by the Independent Publishers Association. In 2009, "Blood and Soil" won the German Studies Association's biennial Sybil Halpern Milton Memorial Book Prize