Why Not Kill Them All? The Logic and Prevention of Mass Political Murder

Genocide, mass murder, massacres. The words themselves are chilling, evoking images of the slaughter of countless innocents. What dark impulses lurk in our minds that even today can justify the eradication of thousands and even millions of unarmed human beings caught in the crossfire of political, cultural, or ethnic hostilities? This question lies at the heart of Why Not Kill Them All? Cowritten by historical sociologist Daniel Chirot and psychologist Clark McCauley, the book goes beyond exploring the motives that have provided the psychological underpinnings for genocidal killings. It offers a historical and comparative context that adds up to a causal taxonomy of genocidal events.

Rather than suggesting that such horrors are the product of abnormal or criminal minds, the authors emphasize the normality of these horrors: killing by category has occurred on every continent and in every century. But genocide is much less common than the imbalance of power that makes it possible. Throughout history human societies have developed techniques aimed at limiting intergroup violence. Incorporating ethnographic, historical, and current political evidence, this book examines the mechanisms of constraint that human societies have employed to temper partisan passions and reduce carnage.

Might an understanding of these mechanisms lead the world of the twenty-first century away from mass murder? Why Not Kill Them All? makes clear that there are no simple solutions, but that progress is most likely to be made through a combination of international pressures, new institutions and laws, and education. If genocide is to become a grisly relic of the past, we must fully comprehend the complex history of violent conflict and the struggle between hatred and tolerance that is waged in the human heart.

In a new preface, the authors discuss recent mass violence and reaffirm the importance of education and understanding in the prevention of future genocides.

Daniel Chirot is the Job and Gertrud Tamaki Professor of International Studies and professor of sociology at the University of Washington. Clark McCauley is the Rachel C. Hale Professor of Science and Mathematics and codirector of the Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at Bryn Mawr College, and founding editor of Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict: Pathways toward Terrorism and Genocide.

Reviews:

"What to do [about genocide]? Can we eliminate love, laughter, or any other human impulse as enduring as the hunger to kill all one's enemies? . . . Few university-press books organize a topic so persuasively that, in a just world, they should contribute to the founding of a discipline, or at least a staple course. Why Not Kill Them All? does just that. As the children of foreign elites attend our universities, the thought that they might read this book, or take such a course, comforts. It does not completely reassure. Chirot and McCauley offer important wisdom--that is, when you think about mass murder rationally."--Carlin Romano, Chronicle of Higher Education

"Daniel Chirot and Clark McCauley, in their superbly written book, rhetorically ask why a dominant group with overwhelming power would engage in genocide of its weaker rivals, and having established reasons for fratridcidal frenzies, they proceed to lay out measures that could prevent such human rights catastrophes."--Dipak Gupta, Political Science Quarterly

"Why Not Kill Them All? is an erudite intellectual achievement that synthesizes extant knowledge and adds to the surprisingly scarce literature on this topic. . . . [Chirot and McCauley] provide a breathtaking historical overview."--Juan Díez Medrano, American Journal of Sociology

"The greatest strength of Why Not Kill Them All? is its broad historical literacy, drawing examples from the Bible, eleventh-century England, czarist Russia, nineteenth-century United States, and well-known cases from the last century. Chirot also displays deep personal knowledge of the violent, interethnic dynamics in the less bloody but more recent civil war in Ivory Coast."--Alan J. Kuperman, Perspectives on Politics