This book provides an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the underlying causes of the World War I Armenian Genocide. It traces the genocide to the origin and history of the long-standing Turko-Armenian discord, with the massacres treated as a means to resolve the conflict between a dominant group and a vulnerable minority. The destruction of the Armenian people in the Ottoman Empire was neither an accident nor an aberration. Dadrian carefully details the calculated deliberations and the shift from Ottomanism to Turkism in the radical wing of the regime, with the act of genocide as a draconian method of resolving a lingering conflict.

Drawing upon Jewish categories of thought, this book suggests a way of thinking that might help prevent genocide.

"Hitler's anti-semitic obsession was fuelled by the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a hugely successful forgery containing the master-plan of an alleged Jewish conspiracy to control the world. In a fascinating work of literary and historical detection, Norman Cohn unravels the origins of the Protocols. Tracing its roots in anti-semitic mythology, Cohn pinpoints the collaboration of hack writers and secret policemen in concocting a book that, published around the world, was once second only to the Bible in its circulation. Even before Hitler came to power, the Protocols were one of the cornerstones of Nazi propaganda and, once the Second World War started, became the principal 'justification' for the attempted extermination of European Jewry. Despite being completely discredited, the Protocols are still widely read, and Warrant for Genocide remains the key text for anyone wishing to understand one of the most pernicious and enduring myths of our time."--Publisher's description.

Dadrian, a former professor at SUNY, Geneseo, currently directs a genocide study project supported by the Guggenheim Foundation. The present study analyzes the devastating wartime destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire as the cataclysmic culmination of a historical process involving the progressive Turkish decimation of the Armenians through intermittent and incremental massacres. In addition to the excellent general bibliography there is an annotated bibliography of selected books used in the study. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's books are events. They stir passionate public debate among political and civic leaders, scholars, and the general public because they compel people to rethink the most powerful conventional wisdoms and stubborn moral problems of the day. Worse Than War gets to the heart of the phenomenon, genocide, that has caused more deaths in the modern world than military conflict. In doing so, it challenges fundamental things we thought we knew about human beings, society, and politics. Drawing on extensive field work and research from around the world, Goldhagen explores the anatomy of genocide -- explaining why genocides begin, are sustained, and end; why societies support them, why they happen so frequently and how the international community should and can successfully stop them. As a great book should, Worse than War seeks to change the way we think and to offer new possibilities for a better world. It tells us how we might at last begin to eradicate this greatest scourge of humankind.

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion has attracted the interest of politicians and academicians, and generated extensive research, since the tract first appeared in the early twentieth century. Despite having repeatedly been discredited as a historical document, and in spite of the fact that it served as an inspiration for Hitler’s antisemitism and the Holocaust, it continues, even in our time, to be influential. Exploring the Protocols’ successful dissemination and impact around the world, this volume attempts to understand their continuing popularity, one hundred years after their first appearance, in so many diverse societies and cultures. With contributions from leading scholars in the field, the book covers themes such as: Why have the Protocols survived to the present day and what are the sources from which they draw their strength? What significance do the Protocols have today in mainstream worldviews? Are they gaining in importance? Are they still today a warrant for genocide or merely a reflection of xenophobic nationalism? Can they be fought by logical argumentation? This comprehensive volume which, for the first time, dwells also on the attraction of the Protocols in Arab and Muslim countries, will be of interest to specialists, teachers, and students working in the fields of antisemitism, the far right, Jewish studies, and modern history.

"The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" is among the most infamous documents of antisemitism. A forgery created in Russia by the czarist secret police and quickly translated into a host of languages, it portrayed Judaism as a worldwide conspiracy dedicated to the destruction of Christian civilization. The appearance of the Protocols sparked a number of bloody pogroms and it helped shape the thinking of right-wing movements worldwide from Hitler's Nazis to contemporary antisemitic groups in Russia, the Middle East and the United States. A work of intellectual history, A Rumor About the Jews by Stephen Eric Bronner expresses the connection between antisemitism and the overarching political assault upon the enlightenment legacy, taking the reader on a historical journey that provides a new and penetrating understanding of an insidious ideology and its broader implications.