MASSACRE: How Ordinary Men Become Killers — and Why Some Refuse

MASSACRE

How Ordinary Men Become Killers, and Why Some Refuse

Bucha. Srebrenica. Babi Yar. My Lai. Rwanda. Nanjing. Nova Festival. Amritsar.

Different countries, armies, ideologies and centuries. Yet again and again, ordinary human beings have crossed the same terrible line.

In Massacre, historian Quentin Drummond Anderson examines sixteen atrocities across more than a century and four continents, asking not only why massacres happen but how ordinary men become capable of committing them. He traces the machinery of mass killing: language that turns neighbours into enemies, categories that strip people of their humanity, bureaucracy that turns murder into administration, the pressure to obey, the diffusion of responsibility, and finally concealment and denial.

But Massacre is also about those who refused: Hugh Thompson at My Lai, Captain Mbaye Diagne in Rwanda, and the survivors, witnesses, soldiers and civilians who said no when obedience was easier and often safer.

The book grew from a question that became urgent while Anderson and Colonel the Right Honourable Bob Stewart DSO were completing Courage. After the death of Ratko Mladić, Stewart, who commanded British troops in Bosnia and later gave evidence at The Hague, spoke publicly about what happened there. He met threats, abuse and attempts to deny established history. If people can still excuse perpetrators while survivors are alive, what happens when those witnesses are gone?

The capacity for atrocity is not confined to monsters. Yet refusal is always possible. The person who refuses may not stop a genocide, but he may save the human being standing in front of him.

The most important question may not be what we will do when given an order. It is what we are prepared to refuse.

© 2026 Quentin Anderson (Lydbog): 9780466511999

Udgivelsesdato

Lydbog: 3. oktober 2026