About the Book
Over 600 terms identify and explain the history and suffering of ethnic and religious groups experiencing genocide throughout the world. The people, places, governments, agencies, documents, legal terms, and all other aspects of genocide are defined for new students and scholars alike.
About the Author :
Samuel Totten is a genocide scholar based at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. He is also a Member of the Council of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide (Jerusalem, Israel).In 2005, Totten was named one of the inaugural chief co-editors of Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal, which is the official journal of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS). Among the books Totten's edited/co-edited on genocide are: First-Person Accounts of Genocidal Acts Committed in the Twentieth Century (Greenwood, 1991). In July and August of 2004, Totten served as one of 24 investigators on the U.S. State Department's Darfur Atrocities Documentation Project. Most recently, Totten has conducted research in Rwanda on various aspects of the Rwandan genocide.
Paul R. Bartrop is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Faculty of Arts at Deakin University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, and Head of the Department of History at Bialik College, Melbourne, teaching History, International Studies, and Comparative Genocide Studies courses. He has previously been a Scholar-in-Residence at the Martin-Springer Institute for Teaching the Holocaust, Tolerance and Humanitarian Values at Northern Arizona University, and a Visiting Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Review :
This two-volume work, featuring more than 600 terms, fills a gap in the literature: encyclopedic works on genocide have been published, but no dictionaries until now. Totten and Bartrop wrote most of the articles and are responsible for the work. Articles range in length from one paragraph to a few pages, and the large number of entries contribute to the comprehensive scope of this work. Entries cover such topics as Armenian genocide, Hutu power, the Janjaweed, Mao Tse-tung, mass rape, Nazi ideology, and Vendean massacres. Thus topics cover people, places, events, and concepts. The authors intend the work to be of help to undergraduates, graduate students, and instructors. They hope that those who are new to the subject of genocide will find it useful as well. This excellent dictionary has the breadth, depth, and clarity to address the needs of all these categories of researchers. Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates through faculty/researchers; general readers.
The first in its class, this dictionary offers a comprehensive overview of the field of genocide studies. In over 600 entries, the dictionary provides information on the definition, theories, history, prevention, intervention, and denial of genocide. Covering everything from the UN's definition of the term to the mechanisms employed when genocide occurs, the book traces the history of genocide and offers detailed information on genocide from around the globe. The events covered range from the Armenian genocide in the early 20th century to the most recent genocides in Rwanda, Srebrenica (Bosnia), and those currently taking place in Darfur….well written and easy to follow….Recommended for all public and academic libraries. [Available electronically through Greenwood Digital Collection.]
In a wide-ranging resource, two experts in the evolving field of genocide studies define 600 terms, persons, and events….The list of entries at the beginning, a comprehensive subject bibliography, and an accurate, detailed index will be helpful to users….It will fill an important niche in public and academic libraries for students and experts.
The volumes are alphabetical and contain people, places, events, political action, and inaction that serve to remind us how hard such a thing as genocide is to eradicate. Our best efforts often prove too weak, too impotent, and too slow in face of such human tragedy. A fulsome index also makes quite certain one cannot, will not, miss any of the horrible acts the human heart is capable of. The authors have done a remarkable study and a remarkable act of human kindness at the same time.
[A] useful publication as a quick reference tool, offering old and more recent information in over 1,000 short entries, arranged alphabetically and backed up by an extensive bibliography and good general index.
As studies of genocide in different fields proliferate, the authors have sought to provide a reference work that accurately, clearly, and concisely delineated genocide-related terminology; the two volumes list and define thousands of terms: concepts, events, organization, persons.
