Agents of Atrocity: Leaders, Followers, and the Violation of Human Rights in Civil War and Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the Twentieth Century

Extract

Agents of Atrocity: Leaders, Followers, and the Violation of Human Rights in Civil War. By Neil J. Mitchell. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. 228p. $35.00.

Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the Twentieth Century. By Benjamin A. Valentino. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2004. 317p. $29.95 cloth, $18.95 paper.

In the last decade, we have made great progress in recognizing patterns in the use of state-sponsored mass murder and other life integrity violations. As a result of this body of work, policymakers now have better tools with which to predict massive human rights abuses, and fewer excuses to hide behind when confronted with potential or ongoing atrocities. Yet much more needs to be done. On the policymaking side, mass killings continue unabated, with few international actors willing to address them head-on. On the academic side, we have spent so much time and intellectual capital on the structural factors that allow, encourage, exacerbate, or inhibit atrocities that we have often neglected the role of the perpetrators themselves. The two books reviewed here take on this deficit in the literature. These important new books convincingly argue that in order to understand and address the most egregious human rights violations, we must begin with those responsible for devising and implementing these murderous policies.