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Dear Colleague,
Perhaps our most extraordinary author on the topic of genocide is Mark Levene. In the next few issues of the Library of Social Science Newsletter, I'll be writing about his ideas, beginning with his online publication, "Why Is the Twentieth Century the Century of Genocide?" A PDF copy may be found here.
I strongly suggest that you download and read this important publication and participate in our discussion
With regards,
Richard Koenigsberg
PS: Scroll down the page for information on Levene's four volumes on genocide--a monumental achievement--each of which may be purchased through Amazon.
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Dr Mark Levene is a Reader in History at the University of Southampton. Though my background and teaching has been particularly in modern Jewish history, my major focus in the last decade has been in plotting and attempting to interpret the pattern of genocide in recent history. This has meant I've committed what for many historians are two cardinal sins - eschewing both the path of primary research and specialization in a specific area study.
The justification is that I'm trying to see the wood for the trees, or put more pedantically, a broader overview of historical development through the prism of a particularly disturbing but persistent by-product. I feel strongly that the phenomenon cannot be viewed as a series of isolated aberrations, but rather as evidence of a much more serious systemic dysfunction in the nature of western-led international society as it has emerged in the last two to three hundred years.
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