Genocide in the Age of the Nation State: Volume 1: The Meaning of Genocide

266 Pages·2005·7.99 MB·English

by  Mark Levene

Genocide1-pre.fm Page i Friday, June 17, 2005 11:42 AM
Genocide in the Age
of the Nation-State
Volume I
The Meaning of Genocide
Genocide1-pre.fm Page ii Friday, June 17, 2005 11:42 AM
Genocide1-pre.fm Page iii Friday, June 17, 2005 11:42 AM
Genocide in the Age of the Nation-State
Volume I:
The Meaning of Genocide
Mark Levene
Genocide1-pre.fm Page iv Friday, June 17, 2005 11:42 AM
Published in 2005 by I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd
6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU
175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
www.ibtauris.com
In the United States of America and Canada
distributed by Palgrave Macmillan a division of St Martin’s Press
175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
Copyright © Mark Levene 2005
The right of Mark Levene to be identified as the author of this work has been
asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent
Act 1988.
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any
part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of
the publisher.
ISBN 1 85043 752 1
EAN 978 1 85043 752 9
A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available
Typeset in Garamond by JCS Publishing Services
Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin
Genocide1-pre.fm Page v Friday, June 17, 2005 11:42 AM
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Preface 1
An Introduction to Genocide in the Age of the Nation-State 8
The Meaning of Genocide
1 Definitional Conundrums 35
2 Perpetrators, Victims and Collective Unreason 90
3 Continuity and Discontinuity in the Historical Record 144
Notes 207
Select Bibliography 242
Index 257
Genocide1-pre.fm Page vi Friday, June 17, 2005 11:42 AM
For Alejandro Chueca
a true friend and fighter for a better world
Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo
If I can’t move the gods, I’ll stir up hell
Genocide1-pre.fm Page vii Friday, June 17, 2005 11:42 AM
Acknowledgements
This work has been a long time in the making. It owes, at the outset, a great
debt of gratitude to Ronnie Landau and Iradj Bagherzade, who were funda-
mental to its pursuit. And so, too, over now more than a dozen years, to
various bodies who wittingly, or unwittingly, gave their support and assist-
ance. I would like to thank the university libraries of Warwick, Southampton
and Oxford, most particularly in the form of the Bodleian, plus the British
Library, for being there. I am also grateful to Warwick University, alongside
the Nuffield Foundation, for useful research grants, to the Herbert and Val-
mae Freilich Foundation for enabling participation in an important ‘genocide’
colloquium in Australia, and to the British Academy, for making possible
attendance at the biennial conference of the International Assocation of Geno-
cide Scholars.
It has often been through the Association that I have been able to keep
abreast of burgeoning developments in this peculiar field of study. Indeed, in
critical respects, this work rests heavily upon and and would not have been
possible without the groundwork and, indeed, often ground-breaking studies
of Helen Fein, Roger W. Smith, Jack Nusan Porter, Israel Charny, Robert Mel-
son, Frank Chalk, Kurt Jonassohn, Rabbi Steve Jacobs, Colin Tatz and Henry
Huttenbach, all of whom were so important to the Association’s foundation. I
would like to thank all of them for their generosity of spirit and, in similar
vein, acknowledge Eric Markusen, Ben Kiernan, Jacques Kornberg, Jacques
Sémelin, Al Alvarez, Alex Hinton, David Wilkins, Herb Hirsch and David
Kopf who have made these and other conferences on ‘genocide’ something
other than simply morose and depressing events.
Turning this into a roll-call could end up becoming rather tedious for all
concerned, yet the more this author ponders on it, the more he would like to
acknowledge those who helped stimulate this work or kept it on track towards
its ponderous completion. Two names, for instance, which come instantly to
mind, on the former score, are Gil Eliot and Norman Cohn, the first for an
entirely mould-breaking work on the sheer scale of exterminatory violence in
Genocide1-pre.fm Page viii Friday, June 17, 2005 11:42 AM
VIII GENOCIDE IN THE AGE OF THE NATION-STATE
our contemporary age, the latter for daring, as an historian, to engage with its
psycho-social underpinnings. I read their respective works when I was rather
young and at a time when I could not conceivably guess that I would one day
myself be similarly engaged. I have had the pleasure of meeting Gil, though
not Professor Cohn. Both have been important influences on this work.
Many other people have given a great deal of time, effort and enthusiastic
support for this project. Thanks on this score are especially due to Ruth Parr
and Anne Gelling at OUP, both Lester Crook and the wonderful Kate Sherratt
at I.B. Tauris, Steven Howe, Eric Weitz and two further unknown readers for
their kind as well as purposefully critical commentary. Donald Bloxham, Dirk
Moses and Dan Stone have not only ploughed through unwieldy chunks of
manuscript but have been really good friends and constructive critics. Their
encouragement, plus their own work, has been immeasurably important to
my own writing and thinking process.
Many, many other colleagues, scholars and friends have given of their time
and help. In no particular priority, or hierarchical order (!) I would like to
acknowledge the help of Mark Mazower, Alexander Prusin, Steven Jensen,
Michael Freeman, Ara Sarafian, Barbara Rosenbaum, Rouben Adalian, Vahakn
Dadrian, Hans-Lukas Kieser, Heather Goodall, Robert Cribb, Colin Rich-
mond, Sean Bourke, Simon Norfolk, Anne Mackintosh, Robin Okey, Chris
Read, Penny Roberts, Alan James, Colin Jones, Henry Cohn, Chris Clark,
Anne Gerritsen, David Hardiman, Steve Hindle, Peter Marshall, Hussein
Mohamed, Cheryl Burgess, Sarah Pearce, Trish Skinner, David Cesarani, Ken-
drick Oliver, Nils Roemer, Neil Gregor, Alistair Duke, Elisa Miles, Tony
Kushner, Julie Gammon, Peter Gray, Brian Golding, George Bernard, John
Oldfield, Waltraud Ernst, Adrian Smith, Mishtooni Bose, David Glover,
Nadia Valman, Clive Gamble, Yannis Hamilakis, John Schofield, Roger Win-
terbottom, Louise Revell, Liz Dore, Tony Campbell, and my late, dear friend,
and much lamented colleague, Callum MacDonald. Plus all the many stu-
dents, at Warwick and Southampton universities, who have not flinched from
engagement with both me and this unremittingly awful subject.
That said, sometimes it requires native common sense to cut to the chase.
So, thanks to Andy Daly for proving that lay people often have a much more
intuitive grasp of the heart of the matter than a host of academics. And also to
somebody else with native grit and intuition, not to say extraordinarily stead-
fast patience; namely Jenny Ivory, who has not only been behind and party to
this project since day one but, most recently, has provided the sort of help with
the bibliography and index without which I would have despaired. Jessica
Cuthbert-Smith, too, who has been the very model of a sharp-eyed, sensitive
and creative copy-editor with whom it has been a pleasure and joy to work.
Genocide1-pre.fm Page ix Friday, June 17, 2005 11:42 AM
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS IX
Finally, a heartfelt thank you to those who have survived this project while
helping to maintain a sense of proportion for its author. Somewhere in the
process of writing, I became seriously ill. The mainstream medical profession
could not provide answers. Two fine acupuncturists were rather critical in
restoring good order. That said, there is no substitute in the health and happi-
ness stakes for family and close friends. So thanks to all those in recent years,
Karen, Jeannie, Helen S., family Doniach-Durant, Pauline and Saul, parents
Helen and Alf, and siblings Betty and Simon, who have been steadfast, loyal,
kind and true.
ML
Kineton, Warwickshire,
Summer 2004
Genocide1-pre.fm Page x Friday, June 17, 2005 11:42 AM