Genocide has a way of imposing silence. Part of its purpose is to erase history, and human voices. This series of three volumes aims to contribute to breaking the silence that so often follows genocidal outbreaks. These volumes attempt to document and understand this global phenomenon. The term “genocide,” as a way of describing the “practice of extermination of nations and ethnic groups,” was coined in 1943, when Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959) penned the preface to his 1944 book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. Five years later the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted the Genocide Convention. But Lemkin considered genocide to have much older roots. He had set about writing – but did not complete before his death – a three-volume history of genocide from ancient times, in which he argued that the phenomenon had “followed humanity throughout history.”

Starting with a discussion of genocide studies and the Genocide Convention, this chapter analyzes the definition and the theories of the causes of genocide. It presents the proposed and used strategies of how to intervene when there is a genocide and how to prevent genocide. It also examines several catastrophic examples, including those in Bosnia and Rwanda and the Darfur crisis.