Life and death issues are uniquely fundamental, since they alone serve as a precondition for the examination of all other issues. Life and death questions move us beyond an abstract, formalist framework. This study gives substance to the social scientific imagination and demonstrates that the present underlying preoccupations of social research give scant consideration to basic issues of life and death, in favor of distinctly derivative ones.
Horowitz asserts that genocide is not a sporadic or random event, nor is it necessarily linked to economic development or social progress. Genocide is a special sort of mass destruction conducted with the approval of the state apparatus. Utilizing genocide as the focal issue, he derives a new typology of social systems, which distinguishes eight types of societies within a framework of state power rather than cultural systems. Horowitz views genocide as a totalitarian technique for achieving national solidarity, ultimately resulting in a state without compassion and law without justice.
The work has been so thoroughly revised and expanded as to merit its new title. Taking Lives has entirely new chapters on bureaucracy and state power, genocide and the human rights movement, and problems of individualism and collectivism in the life taking process. References have been expanded and updated, and the text entirely rewritten and newly integrated.
"Horowitz alerts us to a key question concerning sociological death, well within the tradition of Durkheim, Weber, Sorokin, and Mills.""-George Hillery"
"Horowitz has located the paramount feature that distinguishes one society from another. No one can evade his challenge to judge a society by the number of people it kills. Taking Lives is written with literary grace by a brilliant scholar and committed moralist." "- Charles C. Moskos"
"This book will long be read not in the hackneyed sense of a 'social science classic' but because it will continue to state the case so brilliantly and persuasively for a human and creative democratic society.""-Anselm L. Strauss"
"Outstanding Title! Horowitz has significantly expanded and thoroughly revised this fourth edition of his classic study of genocide. Since its first publication (Genocide: State Power and Mass Murder, 1976), Taking Lives has been regarded as a pivotal attempt to analyze the sociopolitical context of mass murder. It asserts that genocide is not a random event or necessarily linked to social conditions... Among the mass killings analyzed are the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, Rwanda, Cambodia, and Yugoslavia... Imperative for students of genocide, comparative ethnic politics and human rights, and anyone concerned with the most fundamental moral issue of our time." --R. H. Dekmejian, Choice ""Taking Lives" leaves no stone unturned in its thorough analysis....[It] is a critical, scholary reference not to be overlooked for political science and social reference shelves, as it shows new ways of viewing the human condition and how easy the state apparatus can be corrupted into a bludgeon of mass murder." "--Wisconsin Bookwatch"
"Horowitz alerts us to a key question concerning sociological death, well within the tradition of Durkheim, Weber, Sorokin, and Mills."
"--George Hillery"
"Horowitz has located the paramount feature that distinguishes one society from another. No one can evade his challenge to judge a society by the number of people it kills. Taking Lives is written with literary grace by a brilliant scholar and committed moralist."
"--Charles C. Moskos"
"This book will long be read not in the hackneyed sense of a 'social science classic' but because it will continue to state the case so brilliantly and persuasively for a human and creative democratic society."
"--Anselm L. Strauss"
"Outstanding Title! Horowitz has significantly expanded and thoroughly revised this fourth edition of his classic study of genocide. Since its first publication (Genocide: State Power and Mass Murder, 1976), Taking Lives has been regarded as a pivotal attempt to analyze the sociopolitical context of mass murder. It asserts that genocide is not a random event or necessarily linked to social conditions... Among the mass killings analyzed are the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, Rwanda, Cambodia, and Yugoslavia... Imperative for students of genocide, comparative ethnic politics and human rights, and anyone concerned with the most fundamental moral issue of our time."
--R. H. Dekmejian, Choice
"Taking Lives leaves no stone unturned in its thorough analysis....[It] is a critical, scholary reference not to be overlooked for political science and social reference shelves, as it shows new ways of viewing the human condition and how easy the state apparatus can be corrupted into a bludgeon of mass murder."
--Wisconsin Bookwatch
"Horowitz alerts us to a key question concerning sociological death, well within the tradition of Durkheim, Weber, Sorokin, and Mills."
--George Hillery
"Horowitz has located the paramount feature that distinguishes one society from another. No one can evade his challenge to judge a society by the number of people it kills. Taking Lives is written with literary grace by a brilliant scholar and committed moralist."
--Charles C. Moskos
"This book will long be read not in the hackneyed sense of a 'social science classic' but because it will continue to state the case so brilliantly and persuasively for a human and creative democratic society."
--Anselm L. Strauss
"Outstanding Title! Horowitz has significantly expanded and thoroughly revised this fourth edition of his classic study of genocide. Since its first publication (Genocide: State Power and Mass Murder, 1976), Taking Lives has been regarded as a pivotal attempt to analyze the sociopolitical context of mass murder. It asserts that genocide is not a random event or necessarily linked to social conditions... Among the mass killings analyzed are the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, Rwanda, Cambodia, and Yugoslavia... Imperative for students of genocide, comparative ethnic politics and human rights, and anyone concerned with the most fundamental moral issue of our time."
--R. H. Dekmejian, Choice
"Taking Lives leaves no stone unturned in its thorough analysis....[It] is a critical, scholary reference not to be overlooked for political science and social reference shelves, as it shows new ways of viewing the human condition and how easy the state apparatus can be corrupted into a bludgeon of mass murder."
--Wisconsin Bookwatch
"Horowitz alerts us to a key question concerning sociological death, well within the tradition of Durkheim, Weber, Sorokin, and Mills."
--George Hillery
"Horowitz has located the paramount feature that distinguishes one society from another. No one can evade his challenge to judge a society by the number of people it kills. Taking Lives is written with literary grace by a brilliant scholar and committed moralist."
--Charles C. Moskos
"This book will long be read not in the hackneyed sense of a 'social science classic' but because it will continue to state the case so brilliantly and persuasively for a human and creative democratic society."
--Anselm L. Strauss
-Outstanding Title! Horowitz has significantly expanded and thoroughly revised this fourth edition of his classic study of genocide. Since its first publication (Genocide: State Power and Mass Murder, 1976), Taking Lives has been regarded as a pivotal attempt to analyze the sociopolitical context of mass murder. It asserts that genocide is not a random event or necessarily linked to social conditions... Among the mass killings analyzed are the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, Rwanda, Cambodia, and Yugoslavia... Imperative for students of genocide, comparative ethnic politics and human rights, and anyone concerned with the most fundamental moral issue of our time.-
--R. H. Dekmejian, Choice
-Taking Lives leaves no stone unturned in its thorough analysis....[It] is a critical, scholary reference not to be overlooked for political science and social reference shelves, as it shows new ways of viewing the human condition and how easy the state apparatus can be corrupted into a bludgeon of mass murder.-
--Wisconsin Bookwatch
-Horowitz alerts us to a key question concerning sociological death, well within the tradition of Durkheim, Weber, Sorokin, and Mills.-
--George Hillery
-Horowitz has located the paramount feature that distinguishes one society from another. No one can evade his challenge to judge a society by the number of people it kills. Taking Lives is written with literary grace by a brilliant scholar and committed moralist.-
--Charles C. Moskos
-This book will long be read not in the hackneyed sense of a 'social science classic' but because it will continue to state the case so brilliantly and persuasively for a human and creative democratic society.-
--Anselm L. Strauss
