When It Comes to Stopping Genocide, There’s a Will But Not a Way

We Are More Committed to Ending Mass Atrocities Than Ever Before—We Just Don’t Know How

What does genocide mean? What are its causes? And what kind of actions can be taken—in the U.S. and elsewhere—to stem this horrifying, ongoing global problem? Kal Raustiala, director of the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations, opened a discussion about genocide, and how the world reacts to it, by posing these questions in front of a full house at the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles, at a “Thinking L.A.” event co-presented by UCLA.

UCLA historian Richard G. Hovannisian, whose parents survived the genocide of Armenians that started almost exactly 100 years …

by Sarah Rothbard | May 5, 2015

The Morality of Murder

The ‘Charlie Hebdo’ Attackers, Like So Many People Who Use Violence, Probably Thought They Were Acting Righteously

by Alan Page Fiske | January 12, 2015

The Charlie Hebdo massacre was utterly despicable. To nearly everyone, including nearly all Muslims, what the perpetrators did was a terrible moral transgression. From everything I’ve read about the events, …

Are All Terrorists Crazy?

From the French Reign of Terror to the Sydney Siege, Madness Is Too Easy of an Explanation

by Laure Murat | December 19, 2014

Each time a terrorist act occurs in the world, the specter of madness looms on the horizon.

On October 22, 2014, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau fatally wounded a soldier on Parliament Hill …

Mexico’s Outrage over Los 43

After the Mass Disappearance of Students in Guerrero, Mexicans Are Refusing to Accept Violence as Usual

by Ana Francisca Vega | November 7, 2014

Forty three students from a small rural teachers’ college in Mexico’s mountainous southern backwater have jolted this nation out of its decade-long immunity to a proper outrage to mass violence, …

How a Single Gunman Interrupted Ottawa’s Peace

Canada Is Small Enough That One Act of Violence Shook the Nation’s Culture of Openness

by Mat Crisp | November 5, 2014

Two weeks ago, I was sitting in a Starbucks not far from work texting my boss back and fourth about the upcoming Christmas season. I work as the Music Director …

When Bowie Knives Were in Fashion

In the Rough-and-Tumble 19th-Century Mississippi River Valley, Everyone Carried a Weapon. Some of Them Were Even Works of Art.

by Bill Worthen | October 2, 2014

Even in the ball-room, the place, above all others, consecrated to pleasure, and where personal encounters should be least expected, these instruments of death are carried. —Little Rock Times, February …

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