Genocide: The Act as Idea

The term genocide--group killing--which first appeared in Raphael Lemkin's 1944 book, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, had by 1948 established itself in international law through the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Since then the charge of genocide has been both widely applied but also contested. In Genocide: The Act as Idea, Berel Lang examines and illuminates the concept of genocide, at once articulating difficulties in its definition and proposing solutions to them. In his analysis, Lang explores the relation of genocide to group identity, individual and corporate moral responsibility, the concept of individual and group intentions, and the concept of evil more generally.

The idea of genocide, Lang argues, represents a notable advance in the history of political and ethical thought which proposed alternatives to it, like crimes against humanity, fail to take into account.

Author: Berel Lang
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: 12/13/2016
Pages: 224
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 8.60h x 5.80w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9780812248852

Review Citation(s):
Choice 06/01/2017

About the Author
Berel Lang, Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the State University of New York, Albany, is the author among other books of Act and Idea in the Nazi Genocide and, in 2013, Primo Levi: The Matter of a Life.