Top 10 Recommended Readings on Genocide

by Michelle

Published October 06, 2008 @ 08:17PM PST

My list of must-read books, blogs, columns...and one must-listen podcast.

1. A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide (2003)

By Samantha Power

Samantha Power’s Pulitzer Prize winning analysis of America’s chronic inaction in the face of genocide in the 20^th century deserves credit for re-galvanizing the anti-genocide movement in the United States. Power evaluates international responses to genocides in the 20^th century, from Armenia to the Balkans, as well as individual efforts to enact policies and procedures for anti-genocide vigilance through national and international political mechanisms. Prominent organizations such as the Genocide Intervention Network not only reference Power’s distinction between “upstanders” and “bystanders” as central to their vision, but base their strategy on the book’s findings.

1. Samantha Power’s Blog

This blog is less blog and more of a public catalogue—by far the best way to keep up with Samantha Power’s work, from her frequent op-ed pieces and articles to her latest projects and events. Power is particularly adept at bringing foreign policy expertise to the human rights movement, and has a knack for motivating and mobilizing activists—definitely someone that anyone even remotely interested in the field should follow.

1. Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda (1999)

By Alison Des Forges

“Leave None to Tell the Story” is Human Rights Watch’s painstakingly researched and extensively documented chronicle of the Rwandan genocide, written by Alison Des Forges and assisted by a team of HRW field researchers. Des Forges’ evidence shows that the genocide was a political strategy, a "deliberate choice of a modern elite to foster hatred and fear to keep itself in power"—not an explosion of “ancient tribal hatreds,” as is commonly believed—and not only provides a detailed account of the planning and implementation of the genocide, but places the event in historical context and criticizes the international community for its failure to respond.

1. Tears of the Desert: A Memoir of Survival in Darfur (2008)

By Halima Bashir

Tears of the Desert is the first Darfur survival memoir written by a woman. Like many survival memoirs, Bashir’s begins with her home at peace, giving the reader a glimpse of Darfur, not “suffering and soaked in blood,” but as it once was for Bashir, “that irreplaceable, unfathomable joy that is home.” Bashir tells the story of the genocide in the Darfur from her perspective as a woman and a doctor, and sheds particularly poignant light on the use of rape as a crime of genocide, but also on the experience of genocide for the population as a whole.

1. Not On Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond (2007)

By Don Cheadle and John Prendergast

Not On Our Watch is the quintessential handbook for the Save Darfur movement. Co-authored by actor-turned-activist Don Cheadle and John Prendergast, a prominent human rights activist and co-founder of the ENOUGH Project, the book provides personal memoirs of the authors’ calls to activism, a historical overview of the genocide in Darfur, challenges its readers to pressure the government to act, and provides a guide on how to do so.

1. Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (1993)

By Christopher Browning

Of the many attempts to explain the participation of “ordinary men,” the foot soldiers outside of the higher circles of the Nazi Party, in the murders of Jews and others during the Holocaust, Browning’s is the most compelling. In telling the story of the German Reserve Police Battalion 101, Browning breaks with a prominent view that attributes motivation solely to anti-Semitism, and instead finds the men’s willingness to participate in the mass killings was more firmly rooted in the context of war, a typical “us versus them” world view that positioned Jews as the enemy, along with increasing desensitization to the violence in which they were engaged. The book is difficult to stomach at times—in the same way that movies like Sometimes in April are difficult to watch—but it shows that the motivations for participation in genocide are far more complex than blinding hatred.

1. The Key to My Neighbor’s House: Seeking Justice in Bosnia and Rwanda (2002)

By Elizabeth Neuffer

Individual accounts of genocide (or any military conflict, for that matter) often seem to exist in a sort of isolation, absent of a historical context that places individual experience within a broader framework. Conversely, broad overviews that provide such context often neglect individual experiences. Very seldom are the two approaches combined as artfully as in The Key to My Neighbor’s House, in which author and journalist Elizabeth Neuffer presents full and complex accounts of the genocide in Rwanda and Bosnia through her on-the-ground interviews with survivors, participants, and other related actors. Not only does Neuffer construct humanized narratives of each respective genocide without losing sight of the “bigger picture,” her thought process maintains its flow as she moves back and forth between the two cases, exploring each country’s nuance while also drawing out larger questions on genocide and its aftermath. This is a must-read for anyone interested in issues of post-genocide justice and reconstruction.

(Sadly, Neuffer died in a car crash in Iraq in 2003.)

1. Nicholas Kristof’s Columns and Blog

Nicholas Kristof is, without a doubt, the anti-genocide movement’s greatest proponent in the American media. A two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, Kristof was among to first in the U.S. to talk about the unfolding genocide in Darfur. His columns in the New York Times cover a range of domestic and international topics, and frequently focus on international human rights and conflict, and he engages further with his audience in his blog on the NYT website. Kristof travels frequently, and, according to his biography on the NYT website, is “one of the very few Americans to be at least a two-time visitor to every member of the Axis of Evil.” Kristof’s consistent and reliable coverage of Darfur and other matters of international concern make him a must-add to your RSS feed.

1. Committee on Conscience “Voices on Genocide Prevention” Podcast

The Committee on Conscience, an organ of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), engages in a range of public and private outreach and advocacy to “stimulate worldwide action to confront and work to halt acts of genocide or related crimes against humanity.” In the bi-weekly podcast, Committee on Conscience Project Director Bridget Conley-Zilkic interviews human rights activists, policy experts, government officials, genocide survivors, and others, to bring individual voices and perspectives to the Committee’s work. Recent episodes include Joey Cheek, speaking on his activism on Darfur and his belief in the Olympics as more than a sporting event, and Hasan Nuhanovic, a survivor of the Srebrenica massacre, speaking on the arrest of Radovan Karadzic.

1. Responsibility to Protect (R2P) Core Documents

You’d be hard-pressed to find an anti-genocide advocacy organization that doesn’t mention R2P as one of its core principles. The basic tenets of the doctrine posit that, should a state fail to protect those within its borders, the international community’s responsibility to protect those people takes precedence over principles of sovereignty and non-intervention. Key documents related to R2P, from first publication to UN moves for implementation, are conveniently available at ResponsibilityToProtect.org.