The Cambridge world history of genocide. Volume 1, Genocide in the ancient, medieval and premodern worlds

Abstract

<p>Twopreliminary questions must be confronted in approaching the history of genocide in the premodern and early modern worlds.' Thefirst, as discussed in the General Editor's Introduction, is the foundational, definitional question: what exactly is genocide? The second is the question of possible anachronism. This stems from the fact that the term 'genocide' itself is a modern term, a neologism introduced by the Polish jurist Raphael Lemkin in his 1944 work Axis Rule in Occupied Europe to describe atrocities being perpetrated during World War Two,butalso earlier cases, drawing on his own historical research that stretched back to antiquity. Here, then, we deal with two interrelated problems." Thefirst is the question of whether genocide should be seen as a transhistorical phenomenon, or alternatively a peculiar product of modernity. While masskillingis clearly transhistorical, is there something particular about whatis termed 'genocide' in the modern period?</p>