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Ben Kiernan is the A. Whitney Griswold Professor of History, professor of international and area studies, and the founding director of the Genocide Studies Program at Yale University (www.yale.edu/gsp). His previous books include How Pol Pot Came to Power: Colonialism, Nationalism, and Communism in Cambodia, 1930–1975 and The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-1979, published by Yale University Press.
"Humans have been slaughtering each other for thousands of years,
but only now is the field of genocide studies blooming. This grim
account of history notes remarkable parallels in the patterns of
mass slaughter, from Carthage to Darfur. With references to the
genocides sanctioned by the Bible, it's ghastly reading. Yet you
also can't help feeling a measure of progress over the centuries.
Today, we're still far too passive about stopping genocide, but
even those leaders who engage in it tend to be embarrassed, rather
than boastful."—Nicholas D. Kristof, New-York Historical Society
series "Books That Matter," New York Times Book Review
"This grim account of history notes remarkable parallels in the
patterns of mass slaughter, from Carthage to Darfur. With
references to the genocides sanctioned by the Bible, it's ghastly
reading. Yet you also can't help feeling a measure of progress over
the centuries."—Nicholas D. Kristof, New-York Historical Society
series "Books That Matter," New York Times Book Review
"A great advancement has been made by Ben Kiernan's monumental new
book, Blood and Soil. . . . The author's perspective is global and
he is interested in genocide before the twentieth century. . . .
This is a comparative and temporal vision that only the world
history approach can provide."—A. Dirk Moses, The Online
Encyclopedia of Mass Violence
"Illuminatingly put together, well-narrated and lucidly discussed.
A comparison that comes to my mind is James Frazer's The Golden
Bough. As was the case with that great classic, no scholar in the
field has previously brought together such a wealth of diverse
material and imposed consistent order upon it . . . Kiernan brings
order—region by region, era by era, reich by reich—to the appalling
catalogue of atrocity that he so impressively commands. Moreover,
he does so in plain, straightforward, informative prose. . . . This
is pioneering work. . . . He has signposted a way towards a global
understanding of the curse of genocide. As such, this book could
eventually contribute to the saving of lives—possibly countless
lives. No other work in the humanities can aspire to that. This is
a major achievement."—Patrick Wolfe, Melbourne Age
"Remarkable but harrowing . . . the author is forever splicing
unexpected and illuminating primary-source threads."—Stephen
Saunders, Canberra Times
"Kiernan has put a prodigious amount of research into this book,
particularly on the colonial massacres, andhe has made
a significant contribution to an increasingly important
debate."—Tim Johnson, The Australian
"This meticulously researched and voluminous book represents a
first of sorts. It is the first synthetic, single-authored global
history to connect state power and formation to violence through
the willful extermination and attempted extermination of peoples.
Its reach is not only global, it is alsotemporal, as the book
examines violence through time. . . . [T]his work will be essential
not only to genocide scholars, but also to historians and regional
specialists. . . . Kiernan absolutely shines in some ways as a
historian of ideas [and] does an exemplary job of tracing the
justificatory texts. . . . Kiernan's synthesis of this material is
most impressive. . . . When one reads this book, there will be
conceptual and empirical quarrels, but they do not overshadow the
success and tremendous value of this book."—Journal of Asian
Studies
". . . the first synthetic, single-authored global history to
connect state power and formation to violence through the willful
extermination and attempted extermination of peoples. Its reach is
not only global, it is also temporal, as the book examines violence
through time."—Journal of Asian Studies
"Masterful."—Norman Naimark, The Conversation
"As a narrative history it is well-written, impressively
researched, and affords many useful comparative insights. . . . One
of the book's great strengths is its truly global sweep . . . One
of the services the book performs is to highlight the ubiquity of
mass killings in human history. . . . Along the way, there is much
revelatory, intriguing and disturbing information to be gleaned. .
. . Thorough though he is in cataloguing this history of horrors,
Kiernan is careful to draw distinctions among various scales of
killing and diverse forms of motivation."—Aviel Roshwald,
Nationalities Papers
"Kiernan identifies four necessary ingredients in the making of a
genocidal situation . . . [Blood and Soil] also recognises the
crucial processes that underpin their combination into an explosive
mixture. Genocidal phenomena, Kiernan argues insightfully, are
actually inherently contradictory occurrences where an anxious
perception of a specific trend, or a series of developments,
produces sustained counterpoint imaginings. Reality is going, or
seems to be going one way, while the imagination proceeds in the
opposite direction . . . Kiernan is right: all the atrocities he
deals with in his narrative – and he deals with quite a few –
display all these elements . . . [A] reliable compilation of
genocidal phenomena, their chronology and genealogy . . . Kiernan
endeavours effectively to impose a remarkable structuring coherence
on an impressive amount of data. At the same time, he convincingly
emphasises discursive links and resonances between different epochs
and locations. You try and write a book like this."—Lozenzo
Veracini, geschichte.transnational and H-Soz-u-Kult, H-Net
Reviews
"Genocide scholars and those with an interest in world history
should be grateful for Kiernan's latest stimulating work."—Donald
W. Beachler, Holocaust and Genocide Studies
Winner of the 2008 gold medal for the best book in History
awarded by the Independent Publishers Association
Winner of the 2009 Sybil Halpern Milton Book Prize for the best
book in Holocaust Studies published in 2007-2008, given by the
German Studies Association
The German edition, Erde und Blut: Völkermord und Vernichtung von
der Antike bis heute, won first place in Germany’s Nonfiction Book
of the Month Prize Die Sachbücher des Monats, sponsored by
Süddeutsche Zeitung and NDR Kultur (June 2009)
"In exploring the global 'prehistory' of the horrific forms
of societal violence usually associated with the twentieth
century, Kiernan identifies key factors that have been
consistently associated with genocidal episodes. His book makes an
original contribution to our understanding of the
phenomenon."—Michael Adas, Rutgers University
"Ben Kiernan’s Blood and Soil is a major work explaining myths and
metaphors that have underwritten genocide for six hundred
years—earlier within the bowels of the western tradition; now
commonplace practice far beyond that tradition. In seeing
genocide as linked to issues of land as well as race, nation, and
expansion, Kiernan has opened up social, political, and economic
analysis to the struggle for land and the control of
property. Such an approach is unique as it is
provocative. It is inspired by the author’s profound reading
of Cambodia and Southeast Asia. Blood and Soil provides an
angle of vision rarely found in those who start (and stop) with a
European base of scholarship. The book opens up new questions
and formulations on the nature of state inspired murder. It merits
a close reading of the dark side of terror, often commented upon,
but rarely probed."—Irving Louis Horowitz, Rutgers
University
"Blood and Soil is a stunning achievement. The idea for the project
was clearly a prompting of the heart, but the argument itself is a
thing of pure intellect. It surveys thousands of years, visits
every corner of the world, and stares with scarcely a blink at the
worst horrors the world has ever known. As an act of scholarship,
it simply stands alone."—Kai Erikson, Yale University
"Ben Kiernan’s book is a major contribution to genocide studies—a
first attempt to tell the history of genocidal events, from Sparta
to Darfur, Blood and Soil is a well-researched, detailed
account of many instances of mass killings and the reasons for
their occurrence. It will no doubt give rise to controversy, new
research, and new insights."—Yehuda Bauer, Yad Vashem
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