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58 of 61 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Most Important History Book You've Never Heard Of ., June 2, 2003
And with reason. There is none of the sacrifice, drama or nobility reported in battles. It's not about Thermopylae or Gettysburg.This is an account of what humanity has done to itself--and continues to this day. It's a book on comparitive demonology. One almost gets the impression that a soldier ripping a baby from his mother's arms, tossing it in the air and catching it on the point of his bayonet is the rule, not the exception. Ditto for POW's captured by front line troops. The author is a professor of Political Science who finds it amazing that his colleagues write texts on the purposes of government, yet fail to mention that (with the possible exception of the Jewish victims of Nazi genocide) instead of protecting citizens from "the savagery of the jungle" by rule of law, governments have and continue to be, THE greatest killers of all. "Democide" is the word he coins to combine genocide (murdering because of membership in a hated race, ethnicity,or religion,) plus politicide ( murdering for political purposes, e.g; dissidents ) and mass murder (indiscriminate killing). Democide is always committed by governments. It is as organized as taxation or road building. Discounting civilians accidentally killed in cross-fires, or even in the aerial bombardments of cities, this still leaves horrifying numbers. Pre-Twentieth Century? An estimate of 169,198,000 human beings massacred. Since this includes the victims of Genghis Khan, Incas, Conquistadors, etc., There's an obscene tendency to see them as not quite human, not quite real due to the distance in time. So Tarmelane, the Turkish conqueror slaughtered 100,000 people outside of Delhi and he liked to make pyramids of human heads?--Who cares?--Just stuff in history books. . . Is WW2 is close enough? We all know about the 6 million Jews, but did you know that constituted only aprox 13% of the victims of The Nazi Genocide State? Overall, by genocide, euthanasia, killing of hostages, reprisal raids, starvation, forced labor camps and so forth the figure is anywhere from 15 to 31 million, most likely 21 million. Rummel admits he may be off somewhat in numbers, but certainly not as to the State's intentions. The Nazis still head the list when it comes to killing people in occupied territories, with the Imperial Japanese Military being second. As to murdering one's own people, it's estimated some 35,236,000 for the Communist Chinese Anthill. The author notes that those who were shocked by the 1989 Beijing massacre of students, really shouldn't have been--it's the norm. But even that figure is topped by 54,800,000 victims of The Soviet Gulag State. (Not counting an additional 5-7 million comprised of German POW's plus non-combatants deliberately murdered by The Red Army). For sheer numbers, Stalin is our grand prize winner in brutality. In terms of percentage, however, the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot beats his insanity--they wiped out nearly one third of all Cambodians. The chapter on The Vietnamese War State is most instructive, not just for the total toll of 1,670,000 victims but for the inferences Rummel draws: Before the U.S. entered the war, the Viet Minh were already as hardened a bunch of mass killers as the most disciplined SS units under Himmler. America had no idea what it was getting itself get into. The Balkans are something else. Off the scale. Required reading.
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by Mark Kramer
by Johan Norberg
by Burton W. Folsom
