Massacres: An Account of Crimes Against Humanity

by Brian Bailey (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1994

  $4.50

  Ironically, the world's most famous massacre probably never happened. The Massacre of the Innocents, which for 2000 years has symbolized man's ruthless inhumanity to man, was almost certainly a fabrication. History, however, provides no shortage of real horrors to demonstrate the savagery of which man is still capable, even after King Herod. From Tamurlaine, whose Tartar hordes left pyramids of human heads in place of flourishing cities in the 14th century, to Stalin, whose forced collectivization and subsequent purges killed millions, massacres have been used as an instrument of political terror. But they have also been the means to far less rational ends, as the European Witch Craze and Hitler's attempted extermination of the Jews demonstrate. This study attempts to throw a spotlight on the history of human bestiality and address the question of why humans try to destroy each other.