Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War. By Stuart J. Kaufman. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001. 262p. $45.00 cloth, $19.95 paper.

Extract

Stuart Kaufman's Modern Hatreds is a serious, original contribution on a highly policy relevant question, which is strengthened by his scrupulous case study design and deep regional expertise. Kaufman asks: when do intercommunal rivalries escalate to large-scale ethnic wars? His answer integrates a number of existing strands of explanation around the central idea that myths, or as he calls them, ethnic symbols, are the root cause of ethnic violence. His core claim is that “people make political choices based on emotion and in response to symbols” (p. 29). Ethnic wars results from the lethal combination of two particularly noxious types of myths: myths justifying the political domination of specific territory, and myths of past atrocities by others that lead to widespread fears of genocide. The realities behind these myths are far less important than that they are pervasive “in each group's mainstream history texts written before the conflict began” (p. 30).