Genocide

Summary

In this book, we'll discuss two genocides that have cost the lives of millions but have often been overlooked by world historians. These are the following:

1 - It’s insane to think that mass murder didn’t stop at the end of World War II. Since the Holocaust, various genocides have taken place in different areas of the world. In this book, we’ll talk about something that has often been shoved under the rug, but was definitely a consequence of the Vietnam War, the bombings by the Americans, and a domino effect into an already fragile political country: The nation of Cambodia.

The Cambodian genocide was the methodical abuse and death of Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, the general secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, who pushed Cambodia towards being an entirely self-dependent agrarian socialist state. Between 1975 and 1979, 1.5 to 2 million people were murdered, representing about a quarter of Cambodia's population in 1975. (c. 7.8 million).

2 - Yes, even before World War II, there was a genocide, and not too long before that, actually. We are talking about the Armenian deportations that killed between 1 and 2 million innocent civilians, an atrocity the Turkish government still doesn’t fully acknowledge. Rock bands like System of a Down have complained in their music about it, historians have turned pieces of evidences into large books, and when you talk to Armenians, they still remember what their ancestors told them about it.

The Ottoman Empire was collapsing, and in a cruel act of desperation and vengeance, they decided to take out their empirical frustrations on the Armenians and “take care of the Armenian problem.” Mass rapes, murder, deportation, theft, robberies, starvation, and mayhem was the consequence. It became one of the ugliest faces of the First World War in history.