Taking lives

by Irving Louis Horowitz

"In what is widely recognized as a pivotal effort to study the social and political contexts of twentieth-century mass murder, Irving Louis Horowitz re-examines from an end-of-century perspective this central fact of life as a crucial aspect of the social science enterprise. In entirely new chapters, ('Counting Bodies'; Surviving the Genocidal State'; and 'Collectivizing Death'), the author expands key concepts introduced in earlier editions in a profound way. The new edition also contains a review of the most serious work done by others during the past decade, in so doing, placing the author's own efforts in a unique professional no less than analytical context. Taking Lives asserts that genocide is not a sporadic or random event, nor is it necessarily linked to economic development, national psychosis or social decay. Genocide is a special sort of mass destruction conducted with the approval of the state apparatus. Life and death issues are uniquely fundamental, since they alone serv