Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Ben Kiernan has realized a tour de force in clearly explaining to his readers the four usual ideological features of genocides: antiquity, agrarianism, racism, and expansionism. These ideological factors have motivated, in greater or lesser degrees, all military, civilian, racist, or religious perpetrators of genocide over time (p. 572). Kiernan focuses most of his analysis on the six centuries since 1400 C.E (p. 3).

To identify present and past genocides, Kiernan mainly draws on the 1948 C.E. United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide and on legal judgments based on that convention for consistency purposes (p. 12). The crime of genocide requires the act of "killing," or another of the specific acts, committed with "intent to destroy" at least part of a protected group (p. 17).

Although Blood and Soil mainly documents genocides committed by Europeans, they have no monopoly on that crime (p. 6). Think for example about Maoism in China (pp. 512-38), Rwanda in Central Africa (pp. 554-68), or non-state actor al Qaeda (pp. 596-604), to quote three recent examples. Kiernan excludes some genocides from his book due to space constraints. Think for instance about the Mongols' slaughter of the inhabitants of Baghdad in 1258 C.E., the Spaniards' destruction of the Inca empire in the 16th century C.E., or the Congo Free State of Belgium's King Leopold II at the turn of the 20th century C.E. (p. 38).

Kiernan notes that genocides are usually undertaken by radical, unstable regimes, who often try to squash any domestic dissent by focusing attention on an external, supposedly common threat (pp. 34, 55-58, 339-49, 393, 409-14, 441, 505, 510-11, 547, 559, 567, 569, 590). Furthermore, Kiernan observes that technological, political, organizational changes that happened in the 20th century make it possible to commit genocide on an "industrial" scale (pp. 393, 454). Think for example about the huge advances in weaponry and the progress made in both communication and transportation in the last 100 years.

Kiernan often quotes verbatim (would-be) perpetrators of genocide in different periods and locations so that readers better recognize the four recurring reasons that are usually advanced to justify genocide.

1) Antiquity: The destruction of Carthage by Rome sets a precedent for genocides committed by Europeans (pp. 51, 58, 186, 387, 422, 605). Al Qaeda has a politicized cult of Islamic antiquity for its projected caliphate (pp. 599-600). In contrast, Russia's Bolsheviks and China's Communist revolutionaries sought a sharp break with their respective country's past, seeking all-out modernization (pp. 394, 512).

2) Agrarianism: The more ancient image of the Garden of Eden, whether as pristine ethnic preserve, uninhabited pastoral idyll, or superior agricultural economy, was widely used by European colonists as an excuse to deprive natives from land ownership, and in some cases, obliterate their presence (pp. 79, 165-69, 217-18, 284, 311-18, 327, 367, 374, 423, 436, 486, 605). Interestingly, Russia's Bolsheviks and China's Communist revolutionaries were against the peasantry because they considered it an alternative power structure to be crushed (pp. 489-503, 526-31). Although the world is increasingly urbanized and industrialized, the aversion to cities and industries, which springs from this same faith in rural virtues, remains potent in the mind of many genocidal perpetrators (pp. 32, 424, 430-32, 536-38, 545, 564, 575, 580, 592, 603-06). For example, Serb perpetrators of the Bosnian genocide regarded their Muslim victims as city dwellers, in contrast to Serb peasants (p. 592).

3) Racism: Many perpetrators have used biological metaphors to justify genocidal massacres (pp. 280-81, 309, 313, 375, 388, 394, 431, 439, 450-51, 475, 483, 559, 566, 587-88, 602). For example, the slogan "Nits make Lice" was used to justify the massacres of Native Americans in the American West and Aborigines in the Australian outback in the 19th century C.E. Other examples include the comparison of Jews to "lice" by the Nazis or the reduction of the Shi'a community to the locus "where the disease lies" according to al Qaeda (p. 606).

4) Expansionism: Imperial and territorial conquests often result in the extermination of local populations (pp. 77, 88, 95, 99-100, 248, 270, 284, 374, 386, 438, 446, 453-55). Think for example about what happened to many Amerindians who were "in the way" of white settlers before and after the independence of the U.S. (pp. 213-48, 310-63). Kiernan also observes that (future) genocidal leaders regularly hail disproportionately from previously "lost" territories beyond the supposedly shrinking prewar homeland. Think for instance about the Young Turks, Nazi Leaders, or the Khmer Rouge (pp. 393, 433, 551-52).

Although some quotes of (would-be) perpetrators of genocide can look and feel like delirium, they should be taken seriously to prevent future genocides (pp. 569, 606). Kiernan demonstrates with much conviction that would-be perpetrators of genocide often telegraph in advance what is awaiting the "undesirables" on their target list once they are at their mercy.

Here follow two recent examples:

1) From 1986, Hutu chauvinist historian Ferdinand Nahimana became a highly influential, multimedia ideologue of the Hutu resistance to Tutsi intrusion which culminated in the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi (pp. 560-62).

2) In 1987, the Committee of the Arab Gathering in Darfur, Sudan, sent an ominous letter of ethnic complaint about non-Arab Africans living in the region to the Sudanese prime minister in Khartoum. As the cliché says, the rest is history (pp. 594-96).

As a side note, Kiernan could leverage his in-depth expertise on the subject to write another book that helps countries better deal with the aftermath of genocides. Prosecuting the worst perpetrators of genocides is not enough (p. 415). The recent controversy in the U.S. about what happened to the Armenians living under Ottoman rule during WWI shows that no reconciliation can be seriously considered as long as the past is not dealt with appropriately (pp. 395-415).

Ben Kiernan is the leading authority on the Cambodian genocide. He compiled and analyzed a good deal of the primary source material related to the Cambodian genocide and his books are essential reading on that topic. This very ambitious book displays both Kiernan's strengths and weaknesses as a scholar and writer.

Like Kiernan's prior books, Blood and Soil is based on a great deal of careful scholarly work. In the case of Blood and Soil, this is mainly a careful reading of an enormous amount of secondary literature which he attempts to distill into an analysis of genocide. In this process, Kiernan attempts to provide a summary narrative of many of the most horrifying episodes in human history. This is the strength of the book. Many of these episodes, such as the conquest of what is now southern Vietnam, the horrors that accompanied the unification of Japan, German imperialism in Southwest Africa, or the genocidal activity of the Pakistani army in what is now Bangladesh, will be unknown to most readers. Several of his descriptions of better known events, such as colonial American genocidal activities against native Americans, the extermination of Tasmanian aborigines, the crimes of Mao's regime, Japanese imperialism in China, and the Armenian genocide, are concise and insightful.

This book also exhibits Kiernan's weaknesses. Kiernan is not as strong an analyst as he a compiler. Kiernan opens Blood and Soil with an analytical chapter which he uses to set the stage for the rest of the book. Kiernan uses the definitions of genocide established in recent international conventions to define his subject. This is reasonable as it provides a uniform standard to judge crimes across a broad swath of history. He admits, however, that these definitions don't fit some of the greatest crimes of the 20th century, notably the enormous murders of the Stalinist and Maoist states. Indeed, by these definitions, its been argued (by Pol Pot's biographer Philip Short) that the Cambodian genocide was not strictly speaking, a genocide. Kiernan, nonetheless, includes large chapters on the crimes of Stalin's Soviet Union and Mao's China. These chapters appropriate for a book on the great crimes of humanity but their inclusion call into question his interpretative framework.

Kiernan argues that genocides are associated with common ideological features - racism, a preoccupation with an idealized past, territorial expansionism, and preoccupation with agrarianism as a core social value. Much of Blood and Soil is an attempt to identify these themes across an considerable range of genocides in human history. Kiernan argues that these traits are in fact ancient and arise in variety of civilizations. Kiernan's argument seems to apply to many historical situations. It fits the Holocaust quite well, can be applied easily to European colonial expansions, and Kiernan has very interesting discussions of these themes in the Armenian genocide, Japanese imperialism in China, and the Khmer Rouge genocide. But, are they really universal. Kiernan himself points out that the ongoing Darfur genocide is being carried out by pastoralists against peasants, the reverse of his model. Kiernan's themes apply poorly to the crimes of the Leninist-Stalinist state and to Mao's China, a point which he concedes explictly. It appears that his analytic categories have limited range.

Kiernan never discusses the extent to which these ideological features are results of conquest and violence rather than causes. No one who has read about the Holocaust or the Cambodian genocide can deny the power of brutal ideology. But at least in the case of colonial expansions, these kinds of ideologies could be after the fact justifications. It is, as Tacitus wrote, "human nature to despise those you have injured."

Kiernan introduces his analysis in part because he is interested in identifying factors that might predict genocidal regimes. His examination of the history of Rwanda in the years leading up to the genocide would seem to bear him out. On the other hand, his proposed factors would have been useless in predicting the crimes of Lenin and Stalin. One doesn't need the themes described by Kiernan to predict that imperialist-colonial expansion will result in ethnic cleansing. The simple desire to occupy the lands of others is a more than sufficient explanation.

Finally, while this book is written better than his books on Cambodia, the quality of writing is far from outstanding. Kiernan's narrative sections are invariably clear but there are times when the simple narrative overpowers his attempts at presenting his analytic themes. A shorter book concentrating on the analysis with a shorter selection of genocides as examples of his themes would have been more readable and potentially more convincing. To be really successful, Kiernan would have to have presented some analysis in which he tabulated genocides and these assessed how many actually exhibited the themes he identifies.

Finally, I dislike the fact that there is no separate bibliography. Sources are described only in the Notes. A seperate reference list would have made this book easier to use as a reference volume. This is probably the publisher attempting to contain costs, which is regrettable.

After Hitler's mass murder of the Jews people said "Never again". It has been a futile hope so far. What is particularly chilling has been the growth of ethnic and religious mass murder since the fall of the Soviet Union was supposed to usher in a new age of the "democratic peace". Indeed, as Amy Chua has pointed out in her book World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability the "new" order of capitalism and democracy has been anything but orderly.

Unfortunately, while the shelves of America's bookstores are groaning under the weight of an almost endless collection of books on the Nazi genocide, there has been little attention the larger issue of genocide in world history and the reasons for it.

This book tries to fill that gap. It should be read in conjunction with Death by Government the best book on political mass murder in the last century. I also have a list of books on the subject of political terror and mass murder in the lists section of my Amazon profile.

This book is higly relevant because the incentives for genocide in the next 100 years are going to be far greater than in the past. Rising world populations and global warming are going to create a greater and more brutal competition for food and resources. Rwanda, for example, was one of the most densely populated nations in Africa.

In 1945 people hoped books like this would only be about the past. Today we hope they will only concern the recent present and the past. However, this book is grim warning about what is likely to happen if our world does not deal effectively with problems like climate change and global poverty. Let's hope nobody will have to write a book about the genocide in our future 50 years form now. Reading this book might give us some ideas of how to prevent a new wave of crimes and horrors.