First, we explore eliminationism and genocide in the twentieth and twenty-first century. And address how to prevent and hold those responsible, accountable. We are joined by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, author of Worse Than War: Genocide, Elimination-ism, and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity.[ dur: 16mins. ]

• Daniel Jonah Goldhagen was former professor in Harvard University’s Government and Social Studies departments. He is author of Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust , The Devil That Never Dies: The Rise and Threat of Global Antisemitism, and Worse than War: Genocide, Eliminationism, and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity. A documentary of the same name was made.

Next, although governments rarely apologize for crimes committed against humanity or other injustices that they have perpetrated, our guest suggests official apologies are meaningful; they help to change the terms and meanings of national membership. We are joined by Melissa Nobles author of The Politics of Official Apologies. [ dur: 10 mins. ]

• Melissa Nobles is Department Head, and Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology discusses Official apologies. She is the author of The Politics of Official Apology and co-editor with Jun-Hyeok Kwak of Inherited Responsibility and Historical Reconciliation in East Asia.

Then, on the Scholar’s Circle panel, we look at genocides. What are the causes and how we can prevent them. [ dur: 28 mins. ]

• Ben Kiernan is Whitney Griswold Professor of History and Director of the Genocide Studies Program at Yale University. He is the author of, Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur, and The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79.
• Alex Hinton is Executive Director of the Center for the Study of Genocide, Conflict Resolution, and Human Rights, and Professor of Anthropology and Global Affairs at Rutgers University. He is the co-author of, Why Did They Kill?: Cambodia in the Shadow of Genocide, and is the editor of Genocide: Truth, Memory, and Representation (The Cultures and Practice of Violence), and Annihilating Difference: The Anthropology of Genocide.
• Simon Baron-Cohen is Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at the University of Cambridge and Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge. He is the author of, Zero Degrees of Empathy, and he is the editor of Understanding Other Minds: Perspectives from developmental social neuroscience, and The Maladapted Mind: Classic Readings in Evolutionary Psychopathology.

Find book authored by our guest scholars on this Book Shelf .

This program is produced with generous contribution from Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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