Modernity Of Genocides Eric D. Weitz Analysis

Synopsis In Eric D. Weitz’s article, “The Modernity of Genocides: War, Race, and Revolution in the 20th century,” the author investigates the connection between modernity and genocide to understand why genocides became more frequent, and more systematic, in the 20th century. Weitz remarks that there appeared a synthesis between the European revolutionary movements and race thinking, a pseudoscience that had become hegemonic in the period. This synthesis, Weitz argues, was unique to the 20th century in that the political chaos that allowed for the seizure of power by popular revolutions coincided with the dominance of racial thinking that infected the platforms of these political groups. By these racially twisted platforms, the revolutionary

In this way he concedes that genocide is not a new phenomenon but differentiates between genocides of pre-modernity and of modernity. Furthermore, he tackles the argument that the 20th century is only unique in that industrial mechanisms have now become accessible. He counters this argument by noting that the Rwandan genocide did not involve high-powered machinery. Also, he gives a comprehensive analysis of racial theory and the power it held among European elites and revolutionaries. Furthermore, Weitz maintains logic in his clear modelling of the revolutionaries’ seizures of power in Europe. He clearly outlines the model platforms for the revolutionaries and their designs for a racially defined utopia. By applying this model to several revolutionary movements in Europe and throughout the world, Weitz legitimises his highlighting of the synthesis between warfare or violence and racial thinking being necessary for the execution of a genocide. A synthesis that could only occur in the 20th

Rather than use several examples to illustrate his argument, Bartov uses a case study of the town of Buczacz to demonstrate his macro and micro techniques to understanding a genocide. In his macro analysis, Bartov takes a long view of the socio-politics of Buczacz and its changing political boundaries and affiliation. To complement the macro, Bartov then employs a microanalysis of the Jewish-Gentile interactions in Buczacz. Here, Bartov masterfully describes the accumulation of tensions that resulted in the ultimate end of the once cordial Jewish-Gentile relationship. By employing both approaches, Bartov is able to logically prove that to bring about genocide, there must be fusion between a violent society and a violent state. In Buczacz, Nazi policies that sought to exterminate the Jewish population could not have been implemented without the ready and willing participation of the Jews’ Gentile neighbours who sought to fulfil their own