The killing trap : genocide in the twentieth century / Manus I. Midlarsky.

Includes references and index: p. 396-463

Contents: pt. I. Introduction -- 1. Preliminary considerations -- Purposes of the book -- The role of theory -- Research strategy -- Plan of the book -- 2. Case selection -- Excluded cases -- Three cases of genocide -- pt. II. Explaining perpetrators : theoretical foundations -- 3. Continuity and validation -- Continuity of the killing in three cases -- Validation -- 4. Prologue to theory -- Rational choice -- Utopianism -- Two historical cases -- 5. A theoretical framework -- The domain of losses and state insecurity -- Three types of realpolitik -- Realpolitik, property, and loss compensation -- The domain of losses, risk, and loss compensation -- Altruistic punishment -- pt. III. The theory applied -- 6. Threat of numbers, realpolitik, and ethnic cleansing -- The Irish famine -- Germans and Jews in Poland -- Muslims in Bosnia -- 7. Realpolitik and loss -- The Holocaust -- The Armenians -- The Tutsi -- Conclusion -- 8. The need for unity and altruistic punishment -- Germany -- The Ottoman empire -- Rwanda -- Himmler and the necessity for cooperation -- Conclusion -- 9. Perpetrating states -- Italy : a genocidal trajectory -- Vichy France -- Romania -- pt. IV. Victim vulnerability : explaining magnitude and manner of dying -- 10. Raison d'état, raison d'église -- The Armenians -- The Holocaust -- The Tutsi -- Conclusion -- 11. Cynical realpolitik and the unwanted -- The United States -- Great Britain and commonwealth countries -- Impact on the Holocaust -- 12. High victimization : the role of realpolitik -- Hungary -- The Netherlands -- 13. Inequality and absence of identification -- Inequality and absence of identification between perpetrators and victims -- Inequality and absence of identification among the victims -- On the possibilities of survival -- Equality and identification between Jews and non-Jews -- 14. On the possibility of revolt and altruistic punishment -- Łódz -- Warsaw -- Vilna etc.

Summary: "The Killing Trap offers a comparative analysis of the genocides, politicides, and ethnic cleansings of the twentieth century, which are estimated to have cost upwards of forty million lives. The book seeks to understand both the occurrence and magnitude of genocide, based on the conviction that such comparative analysis may contribute to prevention of genocide in the future. Manus Midlarsky compares socioeconomic circumstances and international contexts, and includes in his analysis the Jews of Europe, Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, Tutsi in Rwanda, black Africans in Darfur, Cambodians, Bosnians, and the victims of conflict in Ireland. The occurrence of genocide is explained by means of a framework that gives equal emphasis to the non-occurrence of genocide, a critical element not found in other comparisons, and victims are given a prominence equal to that of perpetrators in understanding the magnitude of genocide."--BOOK JACKET.