Perpetrators of mass atrocities have used displacement to transport victims to killing sites or extermination camps to transfer victims to sites of forced labor and attrition, to ethnically homogenize regions by moving victims out of their homes and lands, and to destroy populations by depriving them of vital daily needs. Displacement has been treated as a corollary practice to crimes committed, not a central aspect of their perpetration. Destroying Them Gradually examines four cases that illuminate why perpetrators have destroyed populations using displacement policies: Germany’s genocide of the Herero (1904–1908); Ottoman genocides of Christian minorities (1914–1925); expulsions of Germans from East/Central Europe (1943–1952); and climate violence (twenty-first century). Because displacement has been typically framed as a secondary aspect of mass atrocities, existing scholarship overlooks how perpetrators use it as a means of executing destruction rather than a vehicle for moving people to a specific location to commit atrocities.
 

After the unthinkable horrors of the Holocaust, the United Nations signed the Genocide Convention in 1948. Although this convention aimed for the prevention of genocide in the future, large-scale mass murder nonetheless returned in Rwanda and Cambodia, among other nations. Genocide is incredibly difficult to fight, as its causes are complex and deeply rooted, but international courts and tribunals have begun to play an increasing role in bringing perpetrators to justice. This book offers concise information about five twentieth-century cases of genocide, while analyzing overarching issues in international justice.  

Landscapes of Movement and Predation is a global study of times and places where people were subject to brutality, displacement, and loss of life, liberty, livelihood, and possessions. Extensive landscapes of predation emerged in the colonial era when Europeans expanded across much of the world, appropriating land and demanding labor from Indigenous people, resulting in the enslavement of millions of Africans and Indigenous Americans.

Landscapes of predation also developed in precolonial times in places where people were subjected to repeated ruthless attacks and dislocation. With contributions from archaeologists and a historian, the book provides a startling new perspective on an aspect of the past that is often overlooked: the role of violence in shaping where, how, and with whom people lived. Using ethnohistoric, ethnographic, historic, and archaeological data, the authors explore the actions of both predators and their targets and uncover the myriad responses people took to protect themselves. 

Contributors
Fernando Almeida
Thomas John Biginagwa
Brenda J. Bowser
Catherine M. Cameron
Charles Cobb
Robbie Ethridge
Thiago Kater
Richard M. Leventhal
Lydia Wilson Marshall
Cliverson Pessoa
Neil Price
Ben Raffield
Andrés Reséndez
Samantha Seyler
Fabíola Andréa Silva