Genocide: A Select Bibliography

There’s a little bit of everything here: legal, sociological, historical,* and philosophical approaches to and dimensions of genocide, as well as several works that focus on specific and well-known cases of genocide in the twentieth century. In a forthcoming post I’ll introduce some material from Larry May’s (characteristically) incisive normative examination (below) of the moral and legal concept of genocide, in part, because I’m interested in the notion of “cultural genocide,” which lacks full-fledged legal recognition as a distinct crime in international criminal law. In turn, I hope even further down the road to discuss cultural genocide in Tibet, especially by way of accounting for the resort to self-immolation as a form of (largely) religiously motivated or sanctioned (in this instance) political protest. I welcome suggestions for additional entries to this (‘select’) list.

• Amann, Diane Marie, “Group Mentality, Expressivism, and Genocide,” International Criminal Law Review, Vol. 2, 2 (2002): 93-143, 2002. Available: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1006594.
• Bailyn, Bernard. The Barbarous Years—The Peopling of British North America: The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600-1675. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012.
• Benesch, Susan, “Vile Crime or Inalienable Right: Defining Incitement to Genocide,” Virginia Journal of International Law, Vol. 48: 3 (2008): 485-528.
• Card, Claudia, and Arman T. Marsoobian, eds. Genocide’s Aftermath. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2007.
• Chalk, Frank, and Kurt Jonassohn. The History and Sociology of Genocide. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990.
• Davidson, Lawrence. Cultural Genocide. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2012.
• Donnelly, Jack. “Genocide and Humanitarian Intervention,” Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 1, No. 1 (March 2002): 93-109.
• Gourevitch, Philip. We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families: Stories from Rwanda. New York: Picador, 1998.
• Greenawalt, Alexander. “Rethinking Genocidal Intent: The Case for a Knowledge-Based Interpretation,” Columbia Law Review, Vol. 99 (1999): 2259-2294.
• Grunfeld, Fred, and Anke Huijboom. The Failure to Prevent Genocide in Rwanda: The Role of Bystanders. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 2007. 
• Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1998.
• International Campaign for Tibet (Report). “60 Years of China Misrule: Arguing Cultural Genocide in Tibet.” Washington, DC: International Campaign for Tibet, 2012. 
• Jones, Adam. Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction. New York: Routledge, 2006.
• Kiernan, Ben. The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide under the Khmer Rouge, 1975 79. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 3rd ed., 2008.
• Lang, Berel. Act and Idea in the Nazi Genocide. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1990.
• Lemkin, Raphael. Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, Laws of Occupation, Analysis of Government, Proposals for Redress. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for World Peace, 1944.
• Luban, David. “Calling Genocide by Its Rightful Name: Lemkin’s Word, Darfur, and the UN Report,” Chicago Journal of International Law, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Spring 2006): 1-18.
• Mamdani, Mahmood. When Victims become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001.
• May, Larry. Genocide: A Normative Account. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
• Newman, Leonard S., and Ralph Erber, eds. Understanding Genocide. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
• Pendas, Devin O. The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial, 1963-1965: Genocide, History, and the Limits of the Law. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
• Power, Samantha. “A Problem from Hell:” America and the Age of Genocide. New York: HarperCollins, 2002.  
• Prunier, Gérard. The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995.
• Quigley, John. The Genocide Convention: An International Law Analysis. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006.
• Ramji [now: Ramji-Nogales], Jaya, and Beth Van Schaack, eds. Bringing the Khmer Rouge to Justice: Prosecuting Mass Violence before the Cambodian Courts. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2005.
• Rosenbaum, Alan S., ed. Is the Holocaust Unique? Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001.
• Schabas, William. A. Genocide in International Law: The Crime of Crimes. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2nd ed., 2009.
• Shaw, Martin. What is Genocide? Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2007.
• Shelton, Dinah, ed. Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes against Humanity, 3 Vols. Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference, 2005.
• Waller, James. Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
• Wouters, Jan, and Sten Verhoeven. “The Prohibition of Genocide as a Norm of Ius Cogens and Its Implication for Enforcement of the Law of Genocide,” Institute for International Law, Working Paper No. 69 (January 2005), Available: http://www.law.kuleuven.be/iir/nl/onderzoek/wp/WP69e.pdf

See too the literature available from the Genocide Studies Program at Yale University.

* For an introductory catalogue of cases: actual, possible, and unlikely, please see the Wiki entry on “Genocides in history.”

For those wanting an introduction to the basics of international criminal law, I recommend the following five volumes:

i)    Cassese, Antonio. International Criminal Law. New York: Oxford University Press, 2nd ed., 2008.
ii)   Cassese, Antonio, Editor-in-chief. The Oxford Companion to International Criminal Justice. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
iii)  Cassese, Antonio A., Guido G. Acquaviva, Mary D. Fan, and Alex A. Whiting. International Criminal Law: Cases & Commentary. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
iv)  Cryer, Robert, Håkan Friman, Darryl Robinson, and Elizabeth Wilmshurst. An Introduction to Criminal Law and Procedure. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
v)   Werle, Gerhard. Principles of International Criminal Law. The Hague, The Netherlands: T∙M∙C∙ Asser Press, 2nd ed., 2009.

Image: “Meo Soknen, 13, stood inside a small shrine full of human bones and skulls, all victims of the Khmer Rouge…in Kandal Province, Cambodia” (2009). (Heng Sinith/Associated Press)