A01=Jacques Semelin
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Author_Jacques Semelin
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Product details
- ISBN 9781849043939
- Dimensions: 135 x 216mm
- Publication Date: 30 Jan 2014
- Publisher: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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How can we comprehend the socio-political processes that give rise to extreme violence, ethnic cleansing or genocide? A major breakthrough in comparative analysis, Purify and Destroy demonstrates that it is indeed possible to compare the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia-Hercegovina while respecting the specificities of each. Based on the essential distinction between massacre and genocide, Purify and Destroy identifies the main steps of a general process of destruction, rational and irrational, born of what Semelin terms 'delusional rationality', responding to fears, resentments and utopias, and re-modelling the social body by eliminating 'the enemy'. The main stages that can lead to a genocidal process, with ordinary people becoming perpetrators, are also identified.
Jacques Semelin is professor of political science and research director at CERI-CNRS in Paris. After having studied civil resistance within Nazi Europe, he developed comparative genocide research and is now exploring processes of reconciliation and prevention. His previously published book in English is Unarmed Against Hitler: Civil Resistance in Europe, 1939-1943, and he is founder of the Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence.
