Mark Levene. The Crisis of Genocide. Volume I: Devastation. The European Rimlands 1912-1938. Volume II: Annihilation. The European Rimlands 1939-1953

Abstract

There is surely no dearth of studies on genocide, but Mark Levene, reader in history at University of Southampton and an expert in genocide research, has demonstrated that it is still possible to add thorough study to enormous library already existing on this subject. True, some of Levene's basic assumptions may be contested in academia but this does not detract from value of his enormous research project�s outcome. Already on first page of his monumental study he clearly its basic assumption: according to Levene, genocide is not an aberrant phenomenon in modern history but integral to mainstream historical trajectory of development towards single, global, political economy composed of nation states (vol. I, at 1). He sees cases of genocide as consequence of more general Great Power conflict and breakdown of great multinational states, Ottoman Empire, Habsburg Empire, and Russian Empire of Romanovs. Levene concentrates on geographical areas that he qualifies as rimlands, or Europe's semi-periphery, where new nation-building process took place which was based on radical nationalist ideas that led to widespread ethnic cleansing in region that was known before for its multicultural richness. The rimlands examined offer threefold delineation: Balkans, Caucasus�Black Sea�eastern Anatolia zone and the Land Between, a giant sliver of territory running from Baltic southwards, to include Belorussia and right-bank Ukraine in east, and as far as Crimea in its western reaches embracing lands of historic Poland, with an approximate north-west, south-east line running from Silesia through Carpathians and sub-Carpathian ranges towards an intersection with Danube at its deltaic point of entry into Black Sea (vol. I, at 7). No doubt, there is conspicuous territorial overlap