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Ben Kiernan. Blood and Soil: a World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur

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Ben Kiernan. Blood and Soil: a World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur Ben Kiernan. Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. x + 724 pp. $40.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-300-10098-3. Reviewed by John M. Cox Published on H-German (October, 2009) Commissioned by Susan R. Boettcher With this monumental book, Ben F. Kiernan pation with restoring purity and order" (p. 27); has made an immense contribution to the feld of cults of cultivation or agriculture, which among genocide studies--and to felds ranging beyond it. other things legitimize conquest, as the aggressors The result of extensive research and deep reflec‐ "claim a unique capacity to put conquered lands tion, it challenges scholars of genocide with its into productive use" (p. 29); and expansionism. bold theses; delivers a laudably inclusive invento‐ Kiernan has developed and enriched this theory ry of genocidal violence spanning many centuries; over the course of several books and articles. In and represents a powerful example of a well-syn‐ the influential The Specter of Genocide (2003), co- thesized world history, one that will be highly edited with Robert Gellately, Kiernan concluded valuable for scholarly as well as non-academic au‐ his own essay by arguing in a more tentative fash‐ diences. ion for the combustible potential of these ele‐ Rather than simply subjecting his readers to ments: "As in the Armenian Genocide, the Holo‐ an oppressive account of human slaughter--al‐ caust, Cambodia, Bosnia, and Rwanda, the tragedy though inevitably the book does this as well-- of East Timor demonstrates the virulent, violent Blood and Soil offers an original analysis, uniting mix of racism, religious prejudice, expansionism, these dreadful episodes from antiquity to the and idealization of cultivation. Each of these fac‐ present. Kiernan argues that a convergence of tors is, of course, often a relatively harmless com‐ four factors underpins the causes of genocide ponent of nationalist ideology. Taken singly, none through the ages: racism, which "becomes genoci‐ is a sufficient condition even for mass murder. dal when perpetrators imagine a world without But their deadly combination is a persistent fea‐ certain kinds of people in it" (p. 23); cults of antiq‐ ture of twentieth-century genocide."[1] uity, usually connected to an urgent need to arrest In Blood and Soil, Kiernan places obsessions a "perceived decline" accompanying a "preoccu‐ with antiquity and agriculture more prominently H-Net Reviews and weaves these four components together in cipal arguments. While Kiernan's thesis is proba‐ varying ways. Sometimes, genocidal violence was bly more easily adaptable to ancient, medieval, "reinforced by cults of antiquity and agriculture"; and early modern genocides than to those of in several cases from early modern Southeast more recent times, Blood and Soil amply demon‐ Asia, expansionism in combination with cults of strates the murderous potential of this combina‐ antiquity and agriculture provided "an intellectu‐ tion of ideological forces in atrocities as recent as al backdrop to mass killing"; in other examples, those in Cambodia, Rwanda, and Yugoslavia. The "settler preoccupations with antiquity and agri‐ author also skillfully applies his theory to certain culture" contributed to genocidal outbursts (p. heavily researched topics, such as Nazism's ideo‐ 168). It is not always readily apparent how or why logical origins and precursors. "Land and race these factors--in particular, obsessions with agri‐ were linked," Kiernan avers, in the ideology and culture and antiquity--produce genocidal vio‐ movements of the late nineteenth century that lence, but the author is modest enough to ac‐ saw the German peasantry as the "true embodi‐ knowledge that those factors "often accompanied ment of the Volk" and that fused romantic agrari‐ genocide but cannot fully explain it" (p. 168). anism with other strains of conservative and na‐ Occasionally, the analytic reader may ques‐ tionalist thought (p. 378). tion these categories. For instance, confidence in In addition to its bold effort at unifying dis‐ the book's chief thesis may be undermined by the parate historical events, Kiernan's book is distinc‐ caveat, made in the introduction, that "catastro‐ tive in other fundamental ways. In contrast to oth‐ phes lacking more than one of the major features er major overviews of genocide, two-thirds of of genocide ... identified" were "excluded" from Blood and Soil is devoted to mass killings that pre‐ this study (p. 38). And Kiernan sometimes stretch‐ date 1900. More than two hundred pages--all of es to incorporate the agrarian and antiquity part 2 of the three-part book--are devoted to "Set‐ themes, as when seizing upon the utterances of tler Colonialism," chronicling atrocities that ac‐ "metaphors of cultivation" or "agrarian companied land-grabs and ethnic cleansing in Ire‐ metaphors" by individuals in the service of vio‐ land, colonial North America, Australia, the Unit‐ lent regimes. In a 2001 article on the Cambodian ed States, and nineteenth-century Africa. The sec‐ genocide, Kiernan pointed to another genocidal tion on Africa begins with the French efforts to dynamic--the "twin peaks" of "national ambition conquer, pacify, and settle Algeria between 1830 and national insecurity"--that could have been a and 1875, one of several oft-neglected episodes stronger impetus in some of the episodes chroni‐ that Kiernan masterfully integrates. This second cled in Blood and Soil than the convergence of the section is in some ways Blood and Soil's strongest, four factors the book stresses.[2] Kiernan occa‐ a powerful complement to the recent work of A. sionally invokes but does not develop this theme Dirk Moses, among others, that links not simply of ambition alongside insecurity in Blood and colonialism, but also settler colonialism and impe‐ Soil. (In relation to Bosnia, for example, Kiernan rialist occupation, to racism and genocidal vio‐ quotes Norman Cigar in arguing that Serb nation‐ lence. And, as Kiernan reminds us, some of the alists' "dualistic self-view of superiority and ac‐ victims of the Europeans' colonial depredations companying vulnerability bordering on paranoia" acted with relative magnanimity: Herero chief fueled the genocide [p. 588]). Samuel Maharero's order "to spare women, chil‐ Nonetheless, Blood and Soil's patient accumu‐ dren, other Africans, and non-German whites" lation of detail and evidence should win over certainly stands in sharp contrast to General readers who may initially be skeptical of its prin‐ Lothar von Trotha's infamous "extermination or‐ der," as well as the bellowing of German newspa‐ 2 H-Net Reviews pers that "no war may be conducted humanely gallery of depraved killers: the sixteenth-century against nonhumans" (p. 382). Japanese feudal lord Toyotomi Hideyoshi, for in‐ In its chapter on the Holocaust, Blood and Soil stance, whose efforts at expansion and unification emphasizes the obsessions of Heinrich Himmler entailed the murder of tens of thousands of Kore‐ and Richard Walther Darré with the peasantry ans, and, more obscurely, the following century's and its supposed values. In contrast, according to pitiless Javanese ruler Amangjurat I, whose vic‐ the Nazi vision, the Jew was (here Kiernan quotes tims included numerous close family members Jeffrey Richards) "materialist and thus the enemy and associates. of Volkist spiritualism … a rootless wanderer and A trailblazing work such as this one should therefore the opposite of Volkist rootedness," and not only posit original ideas but also elicit ques‐ in other ways a creature of the city and thereby tions. Among the issues that Blood and Soil "alien to the agrarian peasant ideal of the Volk" prompts further reflection upon: How small can a (p. 431). In fascinating, disturbing detail Kiernan targeted group be for us to classify its extinction also outlines the scale, grandiosity, and other‐ or near-extinction as a genocide?[5] The destruc‐ worldliness of the Nazis' ethnic engineering and tion of the Pequots, who declined from about four population schemes. As elsewhere in this book, thousand in 1647 to approximately fve hundred a Kiernan provides an appropriate balance of anal‐ few years later, meets most standard criteria for ysis and description. While he does not over‐ genocide, and resulted from a calculated policy of whelm the reader with grisly details, his examples the English authorities. Kiernan also offers an in‐ are exceptionally well chosen (such as an eyewit‐ cisive account of the genocide of the Tasmanian ness account from Majdanek). Without overstat‐ people, whose numbers were nearly identical to ing his case or wading too far into the contentious those of the Pequots two centuries earlier. Mod‐ "uniqueness" debate, Kiernan concludes this ern-day students of genocide can be inured, in a chapter with a concise summation of the Holo‐ sense, by the massive scale of the Holocaust. But caust's distinctive features: "A state-sponsored at‐ Kiernan implicitly suggests that, although the Pe‐ tempt at total extermination by industrialized quots' and Tasmanians' numbers were relatively murder of unarmed millions [that] has no parallel small, their cruel fates should indeed be included before or since" (p. 454).[3] in a litany of genocidal crimes. It is no longer easy to be surprised by the ca‐ A slow-motion genocide, such as that of North pacity of humans to commit cruel, depraved America's indigenous peoples, also presents a crimes against one another. As Yehuda Bauer challenge to scholars. Kiernan
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