Brendan C. Lindsay, “Murder State: California’s Native American Genocide, 1846-1873” (University of Nebraska Press, 2012)

Deborah Mayersen, “On the Path to Genocide: Armenia and Rwanda Reexamined” (Berghahn Books, 2014): I live and work in the state of Kansas in the US. We think of ourselves as living in tornado alley and orient our schedules in the spring around the weather report. Earthquakes are something that happen somewhere else. Recently, however, by New Books in Genocide Studies

65 min listen

Gina Chon and Sambeth Thet, “Behind the Killing Fields: A Khmer Rouge Leader and One of his Victims” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010): I’m not sure what it would feel like to interview a leader of a genocidal regime. Asking why people decide it is right and necessary to kill many thousands is one of the standard questions in genocide studies. by New Books in Genocide Studies

61 min listen

Mary Fulbrook, “A Small Near Town Auschwitz: Ordinary Nazis and the Holocaust” (Oxford UP, 2012): The question of how “ordinary Germans” managed to commit genocide is a classic (and troubling) one in modern historiography. It’s been well studied and so it’s hard to say anything new about it. But Mary Fulbrook has done precisely that in A Small Town... by New Books in Genocide Studies

63 min listen

Samuel Kassow, “Who Will Write Our History? Emanuel Ringelblum, the Warsaw Ghetto, and the Oyneg Shabes Archive” (Indiana UP, 2007): Scholars argue about whether the Holocaust was unprecedented. It’s a difficult question. On the one hand, slaughters litter the pages of history. On the other hand, none of them seem quite as calculated, systematic and horribly efficient as the Nazi mu... by New Books in Genocide Studies

51 min listen

Mark Mazower, “Hitler’s Empire: Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe” (Penguin, 2008): It’s curious how historical images become stereotyped over time. One hears the word “Nazi,” and immediately the Holocaust springs to mind. This reflexive association is probably a good thing, as it reminds us of the dangers of ethnic hatred in an era t... by New Books in Genocide Studies

47 min listen

Richard Weikart, “Hitler’s Ethic: The Nazi Pursuit of Evolutionary Progress” (Palgrave MacMillan, 2011): For many years now, historians have wondered whether Hitler had any sort of consistent ideology. His writings are rambling and confusing. His speeches are full of plain lies. His “table talk” reflects a wandering, by New Books in Genocide Studies

55 min listen

Dan Stone, “Histories of the Holocaust” (Oxford UP, 2010): I don’t think it’s possible anymore for someone, even an academic with a specialty in the field, let alone an interested amateur, to read even a fraction of the literature written about the Holocaust. If you do a search for the word “Holocaust” on Amaz... by New Books in Genocide Studies

61 min listen

$Dan Stone, “Histories of the Holocaust” (Oxford UP, 2010): I don’t think it’s possible anymore for someone, even an academic with a specialty in the field, let alone an interested amateur, to read even a fraction of the literature written about the Holocaust. If you do a search for the word “Holocaust” on Amaz...$

Keith Pomakoy, "Helping Humanity: American Policy and Genocide Rescue" (Lexington Books, 2011) by New Books in Genocide Studies

96 min listen

Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, “The Massacre in Jedwabne, July 10, 1941: Before, During, After” (Columbia UP, 2005): On July 10, 1941, Poles in the town of Jedwabne together with some number of German functionaries herded nearly 500 Jews into a barn and burnt them alive. In 2000, the sociologist Jan Gross published a book about the subject that, by New Books in Genocide Studies

70 min listen

Sarah Helm, “Ravensbruck: Life and Death in Hitler’s Concentration Camp for Women” (Nan A. Talese, 2015): Today’s podcast is the second in our summer series of interviews about the concentration camps in and around Nazi Germany. Earlier this summer I talked with Geoff Megargee about the US Holocaust Museum’s Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos. Later, by New Books in Genocide Studies

88 min listen

Brendan C. Lindsay, “Murder State: California’s Native American Genocide, 1846-1873” (University of Nebraska Press, 2012): Brendan C. Lindsay‘s impressive if deeply troubling new book centers on two concepts long considered anathema: democracy and genocide. One is an ideal of self-government, the other history’s most unspeakable crime. Yet as Lindsay deftly describes, by New Books in Genocide Studies

59 min listen

Catherine Epstein, “Model Nazi: Arthur Greiser and the Occupation of Western Poland” (Oxford UP, 2010): The term “totalitarian” is useful as it well describes the aspirations of polities such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union (at least under Stalin). Yet it can also be misleading, for it suggests that totalitarian ambitions were in fact achieved. by New Books in Genocide Studies

62 min listen

Christian Gerlach, “Extremely Violent Societies in the Twentieth Century” (Cambridge UP, 2010): What if genocide scholars have been approaching the field the wrong way? When I first opened Extremely Violent Societies in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2010), I was immediately struck by the immense depth of research and learning... by New Books in Genocide Studies

71 min listen