Why did the Armenian genocide erupt in Turkey in 1915, only seven years after the Armenian minority achieved civil equality for the first time in the history of the Ottoman Empire? How can we explain the Rwandan genocide occurring in 1994, after decades of relative peace and even cooperation between the Hutu majority and the Tutsi minority? Addressing, for the first time, the question of how the risk of genocide develops over time, this book helps us to better understand why genocide occurs when it does. It provides a comprehensive historical analysis of the factors that led to the 1915...