Fires of Hatred

Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe

Norman M. Naimark

    A needed measure of clarity...[Naimark] imbeds ethnic cleansing in the history of 20th-century Europe...[and] undercuts the standard wisdom that holds ancient enmities responsible for atrocities perpetrated in the modern era...Students of history and international relations are indebted to professor Naimark for [his] sobering insights.
       --James R. Holmes, Library Journal

    What strands link the last century's bloody spasms of ethnic cleansing--from the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust to Bosnia and Kosovo? Stanford University historian Naimark argues ethnic cleansing is a profoundly twentieth-century phenomenon, not a product of 'ancient hatreds'...The ugliness of ethnic cleansing--its violence and brutality, its misogyny and totality, its effort to eradicate every trace of 'the other'--poses unique challenges to an international community reluctant to intervene in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation state.
       --Mary Carroll, Booklist

    As Norman M. Naimark observes...with broad enough standards the 'ethnic cleansing' label can be affixed to events as disparate as the destruction of Carthage, the crusade against the Albigensians, the expulsion of Jews from Spain, the Spanish conquest of the Incas and Aztecs, and the expulsion of Indians from tribal lands in the United States...He objects that such a catchall approach fails to explain current events in useful terms...Naimark provides...disturbing details--and much other cause for sad reflection.
       --Anatole Shub, New Leader

    As a contribution to the study of mass violence in this century, this book is very reliable, eminently readable, and highly educational. Naimark emphasizes that ethnic cleansing is a 'profoundly modern experience' and the international community, which has sometimes encouraged and more usually ignored large-scale atrocities, is responsible.
       --Stanley Hoffmann, Harvard University

    During the last decade, Americans and Europeans rediscovered the horrors of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo. Norman Naimark's important research demonstrates that it was hardly an invention of the l990s, but has had a long history, often shrouded in silence because it was easier to live with the results. This is an immensely relevant and anguishing study.
       --Charles Maier, Harvard University

  • Cover: Fires of Hatred

Norman M. Naimark is Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor of History, Stanford University.