Killing Others

Abstract

This book examines the origins, causes, transformations, and future of ethnic violence by focusing on its natural history. Drawing on insight from numerous disciplines combined with a theoretical approach that it calls “cognitive modernism,” the book explores all types of ethnic violence across the world and transformations in ethnic violence over time in order to understand what caused seemingly normal people to kill Others. It argues that modernity is the most common and influential cause of ethnic violence and that communal perceptions and concerns must be analyzed in terms of ethnic consciousness, emotional prejudice, and obligations. This introduction defines key concepts such as ethnic violence, ethnicity, ethnic consciousness, ethnic frameworks, and ethnic structures. It also discusses three cultural and historical factors that delineate ethnic communities and are commonly used interchangeably with ethnicity: nation, race, and religious community.