The author’s purpose is to provide biographies of key figures, whether perpetrators, victims, bystanders, witnesses, or protectors, involved with acts of genocide in the post-holocaust era. The author briefly grapples with the philosophical and theological notions of “evil” and “good” when applied to these actors but retreats from this by declaring that this work “does not attempt to judge or assess their behavior” (xviii). The author wishes for readers to make their own assessment of each individual.

Each entry is listed alphabetically by surname and has a descriptor of context assigned, such as places like “Darfur/Sudan” or “Cambodia” or themes like “Humanitarianism” or “Journalism,” to allow the reader to quickly group related individuals. Some strengths of this book are the extensive section on “Resources: Print and Non-Print,” an accessible “Glossary of Important Terms in Genocide Studies,” and the “Chronology of Contemporary Genocide.” These sections will be particularly useful to high school and undergraduate students.

As the author notes, this volume grew from his work as a co-author of the two-volume Dictionary of Genocide (Greenwood, 2007). This current work allows for more in-depth biographies than the previous dictionary format. Of the 173 total biographies, 70 are expanded upon from the previous dictionary with 103 being new. Although the biographies are much more in-depth, they do assume some prior knowledge of the genocidal event that the individual was involved with, such as of the Rwandan Genocide when discussing Patrick De Saint-Exupéry. Using the Dictionary of Genocide or one of the works listed below with this work would be a good strategy to help readers supplement this possible lack of background knowledge.

A couple weaknesses of this work are its relative low number of illustrations or maps and the fact that each biographical entry is not directly followed by references. Excellent resources are included in the back of the book but are grouped only under broad thematic areas making it more difficult for researchers to find additional research on each individual.

Nonetheless, the combination of this work’s currency and its well-written biographies, many of lesser known figures, provides a valuable contribution to the literature. Readers seeking information on earlier events, such as the Armenian genocide, or a broader understanding of related issues and organizations will have to turn to other reference works. Some of these works include, editor Israel W. Charney’s two-volume Encyclopedia of Genocide (ABC-CLIO, 1999) whose 200-plus entries attempt to cover all aspects of genocide from perpetrators to victims, from the eradication of indigenous peoples to twentieth-century events, and from the psychological to the ideological aspects of genocide. The recently revised two-volume Encyclopedia of War Crimes and Genocide (Infobase, 2011) expands its earlier scope to include crimes against humanity and human rights violation. It has more than 400 entries that include individuals, historical events, human rights violations by country, treaties, organizations, and more. Finally, the award-winning and comprehensive three-volume Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity (Gale, 2005) includes extensive entries that include major individual figures, key events, such as the “Trail of Tears” and “Srebrenica,” and related aspects, such as “Advertising” and “Peacekeeping.”

Overall, the narrow focus and in-depth biographies of this encyclopedia provide a valuable supplement to the larger multivolume sets. This work is highly recommended for all public, high school, and college libraries.