This book combines social science concepts, history, and transitional justice studies to examine the social dynamics, specific actors, and ideologies involved in the genocide in Rwanda, and examines what makes this genocide a unique case of mass violence and political transition compared with other cases of mass violence.

It analyzes the conditions necessary for people to engage in intimate violence against their neighbors and family members, asking what inclines “ordinary men” (and women) to join gangs of killers and what role policies, authorities, ideologies, emotions, negotiations, and material incentives play in the mobilization for mass atrocities. Comparing genocidal events elsewhere in time and location, the book also provides an up-to-date overview of the 1994 events in Rwanda and offers new and surprising insights from previously inaccessible archival records, explaining how to facilitate foreign intervention in the future.

This book is of key interest to scholars and students of African politics, genocide studies, and more broadly to security studies, conflicts and conflict-resolution studies, decolonization studies, and contemporary and comparative history.