 | Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com Daniel Jonah Goldhagen’s books are events. They stir passionate public debate among political and civic leaders, scholars, and the general public because they compel people to rethink the most powerful conventional wisdoms and stubborn moral problems of the day. Worse Than War gets to the heart of the phenomenon, genocide, that has caused more deaths in the modern world than military conflict. In doing so, it challenges fundamental things we thought we knew about human beings, society, and politics. Drawing on extensive field work and research from around the world, Goldhagen explores the anatomy of genocide—explaining why genocides begin, are sustained, and end; why societies support them, why they happen so frequently and how the international community should and can successfully stop them. As a great book should, Worse than War seeks to change the way we think and to offer new possibilities for a better world. It tells us how we might at last begin to eradicate this greatest scourge of humankind. |
Average Customer Rating:   Stop The Killing Now Let's hope that everyone at the United Nations and in responsible parties in governments around the world read this book. More needs to be done to stop mass killing, and Goldhagen says just how. Goldhagen comes down pretty hard on the UN for not preventing genocidal deaths, and it deserves the rap. On the other hand, there is a ray of hope: the International Criminal Tribunal for Rawanda, which is part of the UN has indicted perpetrators of genocide. Goldhagen argues that large bounties should be placed on the heads of these sorts of folks. I don't know why I've seen some people on the internet laugh at this idea. It's working. There is in a place a successful bounty program to hunt down perpetrators of Genocide. This past month, Ildephonse Nizeyimana, considered the #2 man in Rwandan genocide was captured. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, put a warrant for his arrest. The United States offered a $5million bounty for him under the Rewards For Justice program. Interpol arrested him in Uganda, and the Ugandan Government is claiming the bounty. Earlier in the year Gregoire Ndahimana was arrested in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The U.S. also put a bounty on his head. The United States through the Rewards for Justice program has a bounty on 13 individuals it says are responsible for Genocide in Rwanda. Here's an official U.S. press release: [...]
I think Goldhagen's book is right on in his description of the genocidal mindset. He argues passionately that more needs to be done. We must do more.
Connects All The Dots I heard this book covers a lot of ground when it comes to genocide. It does, for sure. I was surprised though, but I shouldn't have been, that thematically, it's bigger than that. It goes deep into the human psyche and the way nations behave towards its citizens and each other.
I've read a bit on the subject, and am something of an activist. I've come across many fine books about genocide. In general, they are very specific in the attention they give. Be it Bosnia, Cambodia, Armenia, or any of the other places or peoples that genocide has affected. It's quite remarkable that in this one volume, Goldhagen has connected all the dots. He looks at genocide as a phenomenon. Played out in one venue or another, they share common characteristics. Most important of all for all of us to remember is that genocide as a human enterprise can be understood, and can be explained. It is a hate crime. The UN calls it a crime against humanity. That it is. But when it comes to the killing, it's personal. It is brought about because one group of people hates another group of people so much -- that mass murder seems to the perpetrators logical and just, and the killing is done under the auspices of a government, usually a dictator. Unfortunately we read and write books about it, and we have not done a good job of saving people's lives.
I'd love for all good people to read this book. Goldhagen does a brilliant job. He's arranged it thematically. You don't plod from one country to the next. You visit the big picture issues. Each chapter has a theme: "Why They Begin", "How They are Implemented", "Why The Perpetrators Act", "Why They End", "Prologue For The Future". By the end of it you understand a lot about genocide, a lot about human nature and a lot about world affairs.
He leaves no stone unturned. It's genocide from A to Z. Even though I have read many books on the subject, this book helped me fill in the blanks, and make sense of it all. Because it's organized thematically, I didn't even have to read it in order. I read it one theme at a time, and the ones I wanted to cogitate on I re-read. This is a really great book.
Dramatic and long, but little new. This book is prolix and says little new to anyone who has read a few works about genocide. I agree with the first reviewer who says the book is about the human condition. The will of one group to overpower and eliminate another by killing, dispersing or assimilating for various reasons, usually, but not always, economic, is well documented starting with the depredations of the Israelites reported in the Old Testament and moving through the millenia to the present day. Goldhagen does go beyond numbers and does personalize the travails of victims and perpetrators alike. In my opinion a good editing would have reduced the volume of the book by about half. Goes Deep Into The Human Condition This book goes way beyond talking about numbers. It looks deep down into the heart of darkness. There have been many genocides. Goldhagen explains that they all share common elements. I read this book and came to a deeper understanding of the planet and the people on it. Ultimately this book is about the human condition. What's in people's hearts. What's it like to mobilize others to kill, what's it like to be a killer, to be a victim, to be a bystander. The book is breathtaking in its scope. Panoramic. It opened my eyes.
This book makes the incomprehensible understandable -- that more people have died in genocides than in all military combat combined is breathtaking to think about, and is just the start. That huge, abstract number frames the book. To kill large numbers of people means large numbers of other people are mobilized to do the job. Goldhagen looks into the hands, the hearts and the minds of those who are pulling the triggers and holding the machetes. He examines the local and global conditions at the moment a man, a woman, or a child is felled. He makes it very real, very personal. At the very core of genocide is hate. The perpetrators hate their victims for reasons simple and complex, and the spark of killing is ignited time and again by a political decision, a political calculus, usually by a tyrant in one place or another to mobilize local hatreds for his own political purposes. The killing usually stops when all or substantially all of the victims are gone. The world watches. Time and again, it does nothing or not enough.
This is a hugely important book. Because by reading it, you realize, it's not the world that's watching anymore. It's us. It is each one of us looking, knowing, understanding that somewhere not just one child is being killed, but ultimately millions. Goldhagen points out that if a child were killed on a suburban street in the United States or in England or in France there would be outrage, and a call for action. Good people do not want killing like this to happen. Yet no action is taken when it is half a world away. Nearly ALL the children, the men and the women of the targeted group die.
This book is what happens in places far from our everyday lives. The sanctity of life. Of human suffering. Of the hate in people's hearts. Of the failure of good people and their institutions to protect the weak. After reading it, you can no longer say that you don't know, or don't understand. This book is a very important work that makes sense of the world. It looks evil in the eye and it makes you think. |  |
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