Jeffrey S. Kopstein is Dean's Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine. His books include Politics, Violence, Memory and The Assault on the State. Jason Wittenberg is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Crucibles of Political Loyalt.
Description
1. Why Neighbors Kill Neighbors 2. Ethnic Politics in the Borderlands 3. Measuring Threat and Violence 4. Beyond Jedwabne 5. Ukrainian Galicia and Volhynia 6. Pogroms outside the Eastern Borderlands 7. Intimate Violence and Ethnic Diversity
These are thought-provoking arguments and provide researchers with methods for a macro-level examination of variation in local violence. They also draw needed attention to explaining the non-occurrence of violence in contexts in which it seems likely to take place. (CANADIAN SLAVONIC PAPERS) Offering an interesting political-scientific take on the pogroms in this region, Intimate Violence is sure to spark debate. (Choice) Kopstein and Wittenberg took an initiative with this critical, interdisciplinary step toward a subtler understanding of the origins of communal violence.... The chief merit of the book lies in the refutation of certain persistent arguments that historians have advanced regarding the pogroms.... Kopstein and Wittenberg have offered an excellent outline for more research. It is an innovative and elegant book. (Reviews in History) An original and well-crafted study of interethnic competition on the eve of the Holocaust. The book advances our understanding of the microfoundations of ethnic conflict and challenges existing explanations of violence against Jews in twentieth-century Eastern Europe. Kopstein and Wittenberg also assemble a fine-grained historical data set that could help address further questions about interethnic relations. As such, the book has much to offer scholars of intercommunal violence, nationalism, and Eastern European politics. (Perspectives on Politics) Kopstein and Wittenberg, in Intimate Violence, leave us with a better understanding of these terrible events. (The Times of Israel) [T]hey clearly demonstrate that divisive and polarizing nationalist politics is a principal cause of intercommunal violence in the modern democratic era, which in circumstances unrestrained by state and local authorities may take a genocidal turn. (Journal of Modern History)