Governments, Citizens, and Genocide A Comparative and Interdisciplinary Approach
Alex Alvarez
A comprehensive analysis demonstrating how whole societies come to support the practice of genocide.
"Alex Alvarez has produced an exceptionally comprehensive and useful analysis of modern genocide... [It] is perhaps the most important interdisciplinary account to appear since Zygmunt Bauman’s classic work, Modernity and the Holocaust." ―Stephen Feinstein, Director, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies
"Alex Alvarez has written a first-rate propaedeutic on the running sore of genocide. The singular merit of the work is its capacity to integrate a diverse literature in a fair-minded way and to take account of genocides in the post-Holocaust environment ranging from Cambodia to Serbia. The work reveals patterns of authoritarian continuities of repression and rule across cultures that merit serious and widespread public concern." ―Irving Louis Horowitz, Rutgers University
More people have been killed in 20th-century genocides than in all wars and revolutions in the same period. Recent events in countries such as Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia have drawn attention to the fact that genocide is a pressing contemporary problem, one that has involved the United States in varying negotiating and peace-keeping roles. Genocide is increasingly recognized as a threat to national and international security, as well as a source of tremendous human suffering and social devastation.
Governments, Citizens, and Genocide views the crime of genocide through the lens of social science. It discusses the problem of defining genocide and then examines it from the levels of the state, the organization, and the individual. Alex Alvarez offers both a skillful synthesis of the existing literature on genocide and important new insights developed from the study of criminal behavior. He shows that governmental policies and institutions in genocidal states are designed to suppress the moral inhibitions of ordinary individuals.
By linking different levels of analysis, and comparing a variety of cases, the study provides a much more complex understanding of genocide than have prior studies. Based on lessons drawn from his analysis, Alvarez offers an important discussion of the ways in which genocide might be anticipated and prevented.
Alex Alvarez is Associate Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Northern Arizona University. His primary research interests are minorities, crime, and criminal justice, as well as collective and interpersonal violence. He is author of articles in Journal of Criminal Justice, Social Science History, and Sociological Imagination and is currently writing a book on patterns of American murder.
April 2001 240 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4, bibl., index cloth 0-253-33849-2 $29.95 s / £22.95
Contents The Age of Genocide A Crime By Any Other Name Deadly Regimes Lethal Cogs Accommodating Genocide Confronting Genocide
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Governments, Citizens, and Genocide: A Comparative and Interdisciplinary Approach

History

Alvarez, Alex

World

Indiana University Press

Genocidal Crimes (Key Ideas in Criminology)

Genocide has emerged as one of the leading problems of the twentieth century. No corner of the world seems immune from this form of collective violence. While many individuals are familiar with the term, few people have a clear understanding of what genocide is and how it is carried out. This book clearly discusses the concept of genocide and dispels the widely held misconceptions about how these crimes occur and the mechanisms necessary for its perpetration. Genocidal Crimes differs from much of the writing on the subject in that it explicitly relies upon the criminological literature to explain the nature and functioning of genocide. Criminology, with its focus on various types of criminality and violence, has much to offer in terms of explaining the origins, dynamics, and facilitators of this particular form of collective violence. Through application of a number of criminological theories to various elements of genocide Alex Alvarez presents a comprehensive analysis of this particular crime. These criminological perspectives are underpinned by a variety of psychological, sociological, and political science based insights in order to present a more complete discussion of the nature and functioning of genocide.

Foreign & International Law

Routledge

Genocide has emerged as one of the leading problems of the twentieth century. No corner of the world seems immune from this form of collective violence. While many individuals are familiar with the term, few people have a clear understanding of what genocide is and how it is carried out. This book clearly discusses the concept of genocide and dispels the widely held misconceptions about how these crimes occur and the mechanisms necessary for its perpetration. Genocidal Crimes differs from much of the writing on the subject in that it explicitly relies upon the criminological literature to explain the nature and functioning of genocide. Criminology, with its focus on various types of criminality and violence, has much to offer in terms of explaining the origins, dynamics, and facilitators of this particular form of collective violence. Through application of a number of criminological theories to various elements of genocide Alex Alvarez presents a comprehensive analysis of this particular crime. These criminological perspectives are underpinned by a variety of psychological, sociological, and political science based insights in order to present a more complete discussion of the nature and functioning of genocide.

A part of the Wadsworth Contemporary Issues in Crime and Justice Series, this book is one of a few to exclusively address the core issues that relate to criminal homicide in the United States. MURDER AMERICAN STYLE provides an interdisciplinary theoretical approach to understand the patterns and trends of lethal American violence.

Murder American Style (Criminal Justice Series)

Politics & Social Sciences

Bachman,Ronet

Social Sciences

Cengage Learning'

Genocidal Crimes

Did Native Americans suffer genocide? This controversial question lies at the heart of Native America and the Question of Genocide. After reviewing the various meanings of the word “genocide,” author Alex Alvarez examines a range of well-known examples, such as the Sand Creek Massacre and the Long Walk of the Navajo, to determine where genocide occurred and where it did not. The book explores the destructive beliefs of the European settlers and then looks at topics including disease, war, and education through the lens of genocide. Native America and the Question of Genocide shows the diversity of Native American experiences postcontact and illustrates how tribes relied on ever-evolving and changing strategies of confrontation and accommodation, depending on their location, the time period, and individuals involved, and how these often resulted in very different experiences. Alvarez treats this difficult subject with sensitivity and uncovers the complex realities of this troubling period in American history.

Native America and the Question of Genocide (Studies in Genocide: Religion, History, and Human Rights)

Americas

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Unstable Ground looks at the human impact of climate change and its potential to provoke some of the most troubling crimes against humanity—ethnic conflict, war, and genocide. Alex Alvarez provides an essential overview of what science has shown to be true about climate change and examines how our warming world will challenge and stress societies and heighten the risk of mass violence. Drawing on a number of recent and historic examples, including Darfur, Syria, and the current migration crisis, this book illustrates the thorny intersections of climate change and violence. The author doesn’t claim causation but makes a compelling case that changing environmental circumstances can be a critical factor in facilitating violent conflict. As research suggests climate change will continue and accelerate, understanding how it might contribute to violence is essential in understanding how to prevent it.

Unstable Ground: Climate Change, Conflict, and Genocide (Studies in Genocide: Religion, History, and Human Rights)

Reference

Review\nAlvarez, professor of criminology and criminal justice at Northern Arizona University, examines climate change and its effect on conflicts in this thoughtful academic volume. He argues that the pressing issue regarding climate change is the role it plays in ‘helping create certain kinds of conflict,’ particularly ‘communal and ethnic violence, war, and genocide.’ Alvarez lays out a few ways in which environmental shifts can affect populations and occasionally lead to famine and war. He cites as an example the record heat waves that struck India and Pakistan in the summer of 2016, which melted pavement and killed over 1,000 people. Alvarez also discusses access to natural resources such as wood, oil, and gas, explaining that they ‘allow a state to meet the basic survival needs of its citizens.’ Water, Alvarez notes, is often taken for granted in industrialized nations ‘where cheap and apparently endless supplies of fresh water are readily available.’ He writes of the massive drought that ravaged Syria from 2006–2011 and bears some responsibility for the subsequent conflict there. On the flip side, populations are equally threatened by flooding rivers and rising sea levels. Alvarez’s thoughtful and precise work highlights some deeply troubling but underdiscussed aspects of climate change. ― Publishers Weekly\nBeginning with his hometown of Flagstaff, Arizona, Alvarez then moves around the globe to show how the local and global need to be thought of together with regard to climate change, violence, and death. This approach is, essentially, one significant path towards acknowledging the severity and pervasiveness of some of the globe’s most vital and pressing issues, as well as one that often blocks the way for many people who see nothing wrong at home and therefore see no tie to the broader global community. The book is an extended exercise for the author to come to terms with some of today's most monumental issues. Alvarez is not making the case for the existence of climate change or humanity’s causal relationship to it. These are scientific facts that form the background of the book and need no further explanation or expansion. Instead, the author investigates how humanity will potentially deal with this clear and present danger. An intriguing work that explores an existential crisis without existentialism, for those willing to confront some ugly truths about humanity.\nSumming Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. ― Choice\nUnstable Ground provides a guide to understanding the many and varied implications of climate change—including environmental destruction, mass migration, and dissolution of established borders; the need to rethink issues of national security; and the existential question of life on planet Earth—if there is not enough action now to stem the self-inflicted wound. Alvarez’s timely book is essential reading for citizens, policy makers, and scholars. -- Roger W. Smith, College of William & Mary\nAlvarez has written one of the first, and most assuredly the best, analyses of the connection between climate change and genocide. As one of the top genocide scholars, he has combined his in-depth knowledge of that subject with the most important and up-to-date research on climate change. Alvarez is not afraid to confront the possible connection between future political violence and the changing environment on our planet. His analysis is a warning that must be heeded by policy makers from both industrialized and less industrialized countries. -- Herbert Hirsch, Virginia Commonwealth University\nClimate change, the critical defining catastrophe of our time, is simultaneously a scientific and a human concern. In this pathbreaking volume, Alvarez has combined a number of approaches to the core issue in order to show just what this will portend for the future—a future in which violence, genocide, and population collapse are entirely likely unless the means can be found to address the slide towards disaster. T

Unstable Ground: Climate Change, Conflict, and Genocide, Updated Edition (Studies in Genocide: Religion, History, and Human Rights)

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Alvarez, Alex. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Alvarez, Alex

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Alvarez, Alex. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Governments, Citizens, and Genocide: A Comparative and Interdisciplinary Approach

Genocidal Crimes (Key Ideas in Criminology)

Genocidal Crimes (Key Ideas in Criminology)

Murder American Style (Criminal Justice Series)

Genocidal Crimes

Genocidal Crimes

Native America and the Question of Genocide (Studies in Genocide: Religion, History, and Human Rights)

Native America and the Question of Genocide (Studies in Genocide: Religion, History, and Human Rights)

Unstable Ground: Climate Change, Conflict, and Genocide (Studies in Genocide: Religion, History, and Human Rights)

Unstable Ground: Climate Change, Conflict, and Genocide, Updated Edition (Studies in Genocide: Religion, History, and Human Rights)