New Books in Genocide Studies
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.
Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com
Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/
Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork
601
John Roth and Peter Hayes, “The Oxford Handbook...
We’ve talked before on the show about how hard it is to enter into the field of Holocaust Studies. Just six weeks ago, for instance, I talked with Dan Stone about his thoughtful work analyzing and critiquing the current state of our knowledge of the su...
62 min
602
Deborah Mayersen and Annie Pohlman, “Genocide a...
Genocide studies has been a growth field for a couple of decades. Books and articles have appeared steadily, universities have created programs and centers and the broader public has become increasingly interested in the subject. Nevertheless,
57 min
603
Dan Stone, “Histories of the Holocaust” (Oxford...
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...
59 min
604
Christopher Powell, “Barbaric Civilization: A C...
What exactly is genocide? Is there a fundamental difference between episodes of genocide and how we go about our daily life? Or can it be said that the roots of the modern world, or civilization itself, has the potential to produce genocide?
66 min
605
Ronald Suny et al., “A Question of Genocide: Ar...
Hitler famously said about the Armenian genocide “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” For much of the last 75 years, few people did in fact speak of it. When they did, the discussion largely revolved around the question...
51 min
606
Christopher Browning, “Remembering Survival: In...
Christopher Browning is one of the giants in the field of Holocaust Studies. He has contributed vitally to at least two of the basic debates in the field: the intentionalist/functionalist discussion about when,
62 min
607
Paul Mojzes, “Balkan Genocides: Holocaust and E...
I was a graduate student in the 1990s when Yugoslavia dissolved into violence. Beginning a dissertation on Habsburg history, I probably knew more about the region than most people in the US about the region.
58 min
608
James Dawes, “Evil Men” (Harvard UP, 2013)
This week a Syrian rebel ripped the heart out of a loyalist fighter and ate part of it. You can see it on YouTube. Many people asked “How can people do things like this?” In his new book Evil Men (Harvard UP, 2013),
2 min
609
Richard Rashke, “Useful Enemies: John Demjanjuk...
You may have heard of a fellow named Ivan or John Demjanuik. He made the news–repeatedly over a 30 year period– because he was, as many people probably remember, a Nazi war criminal nick-named “Ivan the Terrible” for his brutal treatment of Jews (and o...
78 min
610
Donald Bloxham, “The Final Solution: A Genocide...
The end of the Cold War dramatically changed research into the Holocaust. The gradual opening up of archives across Eastern Europe allowed a flood of local and regional studies that transformed our understanding of the Final Solution.
70 min
611
John K. Roth and Carol Rittner, “Rape: Weapon o...
While reading about genocide and mass violence should always be be disturbing, a certain numbness sets in over time. Every once in a while, however, a book breaks through that numbness to remind the reader of the horror inherent in the subject.
67 min
612
Lee Ann Fujii, “Killing Neighbors: Webs of Vio...
The question Lee Ann Fujii asks in her new book Killing Neighbors: Webs of Violence in Rwanda (Cornell University Press, 2009) is a traditional one in genocide studies. Her research builds on earlier scholars such as Christopher Browning,
69 min
613
Mary Fulbrook, “A Small Near Town Auschwitz: Or...
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...
60 min
614
Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, “The Massacre in Jedwab...
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,
68 min
615
Christian Gerlach, “Extremely Violent Societies...
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...
69 min
616
Brendan C. Lindsay, “Murder State: California’s...
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,
57 min
617
Gina Chon and Sambeth Thet, “Behind the Killing...
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.
58 min
618
Timothy Snyder, “Bloodlands: Europe Between Hit...
Neville Chamberlain described Czechoslovakia as a far away land we know little about. He could have said it about any of the countries of east-central Europe. Yet, for the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany east-central Europe,
61 min
619
Keith Pomakoy, "Helping Humanity: American Poli...
An interview with Keith Pomakoy
93 min
620
David Shneer, “Through Soviet Jewish Eyes: Phot...
We should be skeptical of what is sometimes called “Jew counting” and all it implies. Yet it cannot be denied that Jews played a pivotal and (dare we say) disproportionate role in moving the West from a pre-modern to a modern condition.
68 min
621
Hans Kundnani, “Utopia or Auschwitz: Germany’s ...
It’s pretty common in American political discourse to call someone a “fascist.” Everyone knows, however, that this is just name-calling: supposed fascists are never really fascists–they are just people you don’t like very much.
51 min
622
Catherine Epstein, “Model Nazi: Arthur Greiser ...
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.
60 min
623
Norman Naimark, “Stalin’s Genocides” (Princeton...
Absolutely no one doubts that Stalin murdered millions of people in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. His ruthless campaign of “dekulakization,” his pitiless deportation of “unreliable” ethnic groups, his senseless starvation of Ukrainian peasants,
71 min
624
Hilary Earl, “The Nuremberg SS-Einsatzgruppen T...
Hitler caused the Holocaust, that much we know (no Hitler, no Holocaust). But did he directly order it and, if so, how and when? This is one of the many interesting questions posed by Hilary Earl in her outstanding new book The Nuremberg SS-Einsatzgrup...
64 min
625
Ben Kiernan, “Blood and Soil: A World History o...
Chimps, our closest relatives, kill each other. But chimps do not engage in anything close to mass slaughter of their own kind. Why is this? There are two possible explanations for the difference. The first is this: chimps are not programmed,
8 min