Thursday, September 12, 2013

Five of the most important books about prejudice

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen is the author of the international bestseller Hitler's Willing Executioners, A Moral Reckoning, Worse than War, and the new book, The Devil That Never Dies: The Rise and Threat of Global Antisemitism.

One of his most important books about prejudice, as told to The Daily Beast:
Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak
by Jean Hatzfeld

A singular book presenting the testimonies of the Hutu mass murders of the Tutsi. They speak freely and reflect upon the character and depth of their dehumanizing and demonizing beliefs about Tutsi, how such prejudice was part of the common sense of Hutu society, how it was imparted to them, and how it led them to slaughter defenseless men, women, and children willingly because they conceived of the victims as snakes and demons. Like the willing German killers of Jews half a century before them, the power of prejudice was so great that, in the words of one of the Hutu, believing and saying what they did about the Tutsi “it’s already sharpening the machete.”
Read about the other books on Goldhagen's list.

--Marshal Zeringue