Fires of hatred

Norman M. Naimark

"Norman M. Naimark, provides a history of ethnic cleansing and its relationship to genocide and population transfer. Focusing on five specific cases, he exposes the myths about ethnic cleansing, in particular the commonly held belief that the practice stems from ancient hatreds. Naimark traces its roots to European nationalism of the late nineteenth century, but he points out that its most virulent expression is found in the twentieth century, as modern states and societies began to organize themselves by ethnic criteria. The most obvious example is the Nazi attack on the Jews that culminated in the Holocaust. Naimark also discusses the Armenian genocide of 1915 and the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia during the Greco-Turkish War of 1921-22; the Soviet forced deportation of the Chechens-Ingush and the Crimean Tatars in 1944; the Polish and Czechoslovak expulsion of the Germans in...

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