Alexander Hinton Livres

Of all the horrors human beings perpetrate, genocide stands near the top of the list. Its toll is staggering: well over 100 million dead worldwide. Why Did They Kill? is one of the first anthropological attempts to analyze the origins of genocide. In it, Alexander Hinton focuses on the devastation that took place in Cambodia from April 1975 to January 1979 under the Khmer Rouge in order to explore why mass murder happens and what motivates perpetrators to kill. Basing his analysis on years of investigative work in Cambodia, Hinton finds parallels between the Khmer Rouge and the Nazi regimes. Policies in Cambodia resulted in the deaths of over 1.7 million of that country's 8 million inhabitants―almost a quarter of the population--who perished from starvation, overwork, illness, malnutrition, and execution. Hinton considers this violence in light of a number of dynamics, including the ways in which difference is manufactured, how identity and meaning are constructed, and how emotionally resonant forms of cultural knowledge are incorporated into genocidal ideologies.

"If many people were shocked by Trump's 2016 election, many more were stunned when, months later, white power extremists took to the streets of Charlottesville chanting "Blood and Soil" and "Jews will not replace us!" Like Trump, the Charlottesville marchers were dismissed as aberrations -- the momentary appearance of "racists" and "haters" who didn't represent the real U.S. Rather than being exceptional, It Can Happen Here argues these events are symptoms of the country's long history of systemic white supremacy, genocide, and atrocity crimes. And there is a high likelihood that such violence will occur here again. This reality, "It Can Happen Here" demonstrates, is a key post-mortem lesson we have learned from the 2016-2020 Trump presidency. "It Can Happen Here" breaks new ground by raising the alarm about the on-going threat of genocide and mass violence in the U.S. as well as considering path forward for repair. Written from a public anthropology perspective, it is also the field's first book to explore contemporary white power extremism in the U.S"--

Alexander Laban Hinton offers a detailed analysis of a former Khmer Rouge security center commandant who was convicted for overseeing the interrogation, torture, and execution of nearly 20,000 Cambodians. Interested in how someone becomes an executioner, Hinton provides numerous ways to consider justice, genocide, memory, truth, and humanity.

The concept of 'the justice facade', among others offered in the book, is very useful in describing the idealised imaginaries which alienate lived experiences on the ground ... Hinton asks readers to unpack their own transitional justice imaginaries and their facade-like renderings to consider more deeply the meanings and purposes of 'justice', 'peacebuilding' and transitional justice measures. This book is therefore a very welcome contribution to critical transitional justice studies. Ebru Demir, LSE Review of Books blog

"This book asks whether scholars who serve as expert witnesses can effectively contribute to tribunals for international atrocity crimes, where the focus is on legal guilt as opposed to academic explanation"--