ePub Death by Government: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900 by R. J. Rummel in History

Review

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Governments Do Kill. And not Just in War.By Nikolay AltankovAn excellent presentation of events that have been with us for ages; certainly for the past one thousand years. Governments after acquiring the monopoly on violence rarely hesitate to use it on their own citizens; Excuses and reasons could be found easily: ethnic hatred; political persecution; dictators' whims...Professor Rummel convincingly shows the chilling picture of mass murder throughout past centuries. Close to two hundred million lives have been lost through democide just in the last century; and this number does not include the war victims!An impressive work which also proves that democracies do not engage in mass murder qualified as democide.16 of 17 people found the following review helpful. Why Powerful government is a killing machineBy Thomas WikmanR.J. Rummel has spent his career assembling data on genocide; politicide and other government mass murder (studying more than 8;200 reports with estimates). He introduced a concept he calls "democide" which includes genocide; politicide; mass murder; and indiscriminate killing of civilians. It does not include battle deaths or collateral damage. He is using a scientific methodology that he applies consistently to come up with consistent mid-range estimates for democide. His findings are horrifying. 170 million people were murdered in the 20th century alone. Later he revised this number to 262 million. For comparison; it is estimated that 70 million people died from famine in the 20th century; 25 million has died from AIDS; 250 million died from Malaria in the 20th century; and 300 million from small pox. In conclusion democide killed considerably more people than war; famine; and AIDS and as much people as the two worst 20th century diseases. It should also be noted that previous centuries were just as democidal.Rummels book "Statistics of Democide" presents his findings in great detail (very long lists of statistics); and additional information can be found on his web site. This book "Death by Government" gives some statistics on the topic; but the focus of the book is not on the statistics but descriptions of the democides and the regimes that perpetrated them. Therefore this book is easier to read and perhaps a bit more interesting (but just as gruesome) compared to "Statistics of Democide". However; "Statistics of Democide" is a better factoid resource.In this book he describes the following murder regimes and their democides in more detail: Soviet Gulag State (62M); Chinese Communist Anthill (35M later revised to 78M); The Nazi Genocide State (21M mostly genocide); The Depraved Nationalist Regime; KMT (10M); Japans Savage Military (6M); The Hell State Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge (2M); Turkeys Genocidal Purges (1.9M); The Vietnamese War State (Vietcong) (1.7M); Poland's Ethnic Cleansing after the war (1.6M); The Pakistani Cutthroat state (1.5M); Titos Slaughter House (1.1M); Orwellian North Korea (1.7M); Barbarous Mexico (1.4M); Feudal Russia (1.1M). M=million killed.The descriptions of the democides are horrific and very sad. The big questions are how can these things happen? People can be very cruel and brutal towards each other that is for sure; but regimes that hold a lot of power over their citizens are the regimes that will commit these crimes. To quote from Rummels web site: "Why do dictators kill and make war? Is it for glory; for things; for beliefs; for hatred; for power? Yes; but more; because they can". Regimes that can't do it won't. Democratic regimes; especially liberal democracies commit very little democide.3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Not for the squeamish!By Alan PhillipsI am not being fatuous or facile. It is an extremely thought-provoking; disturbing and absolutely necessary book.It exposes the dark recesses of man's inhumanity to man. It reminds me of the question asked by the protagonistin 'Sophie's Choice' regarding the concentration camps; 'Where was God?' to be answered by 'Where was man?'.