Genocide is not an invention of the twentieth-century, say Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn in this absorbing book, but has occurred throughout history in all parts of the world. This study--the first comprehensive survey of the history and sociology of genocide--presents over two dozen examples of the one-sided mass slaughter of peoples, spanning the centuries from antiquity to the present.

By including political and social groups as potential victims, Chalk and Jonassohn provide a definition of genocide that is considerably broader than that contained in the United Nations Convention on...