Genocide has been a recurrent theme in human history from antiquity to the present day, and recent events in Kosovo, Rwanda and East Timor have served as a grim reminder that this dreadful phenomenon knows no boundaries of time or place. This encyclopedia is the first reference work to document the full extent of the past and present of this awful subject with authority and objectivity, while also looking to the future and showing how education about the subject can perhaps lead to a world where genocide is better anticipated and prevented.
Detailed coverage is provided of many of the known and documented instances of genocide.
The best-known instance of all, the Nazi Holocaust, is thoroughly dealt with and set within the context of other genocide such as that of the Armenians in the First World War, the killing in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, the treatment of many indigenous peoples by colonizers in the New World, Australia and elsewhere, and the worst aspects of ethnic cleansing in the Former Yugoslavia. Attention is paid to the perpetrators and victims of these genocides, the psychology and ideology underlying genocidal acts, the art, literature and film which have been produced in the course of or as the result of genocide, and the treatment of survivors. The word genocide itself has been understood in a variety of ways by different people. The encyclopedia discusses the widely varying definitions, and provides guidance to those who may well be confused by the views of different scholars and commentators as to what does or does not constitute genocide. It is perhaps inevitable that the literature on such a difficult subject is immensely contentious, and one of the particular achievements of this work is to have assembled willing contributions from a wide range of scholars of differing views.