Short Synopsis
In Worse Than War, award-winning author Daniel Jonah Goldhagen gets to the heart of genocide and, in doing so, challenges the fundamental ideas people think they know about human beings, society, and politics.

Full Synopsis
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's books are events. They stir passionate public debate among political and civic leaders, scholars, and the general public because they compel people to rethink the most powerful conventional wisdoms and stubborn moral problems of the day. Worse Than War gets to the heart of the phenomenon of genocide, which has caused more deaths in the modern world than military conflict. In doing so, it challenges our fundamental beliefs about human beings, society, and politics.

Drawing on extensive field work and research from around the world, Goldhagen explores the anatomy of genocide—explaining why genocides begin, are sustained, and end; why societies support them; why they happen so frequently; and how the international community can successfully stop them, as well as why they should.

Worse Than War seeks to change the way we think and to offer new possibilities for a better world. It tells us how we might at last begin to eradicate this greatest scourge of humankind.

"[A] magisterial and profoundly disturbing 'natural history' of mass murder." ---The New York Times

"Grisly specifics share space with an insightful, often startling analysis of why mass murder occurs and how to stop it.... A significant achievement." ---Kirkus Starred Review

New York Times Bestseller

New York Times Bestseller

Kirkus Review