The Book of Genocides

The Book of Genocides is a haunting graphic narrative that compels readers to confront the most harrowing chapters of human history not as distant events but as visceral experiences. Dana Mashoian Walrath covers ten major atrocities across five centuries: the mass slaughter of the First Peoples of the Americas, the brutalization of Black Americans, the devastation of Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders, the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, the Cambodian killing fields, the Rwandan genocide, the Bosnian genocide, the deadly persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar, and the genocide in Gaza.

Walrath makes plain that the purpose of genocide is always a land grab, and its central apparatus is dehumanization: each chapter delves into how dehumanization operates, not just through violence but through the political and intellectual systems that enable it. The book’s unique interactive design allows readers to reshape images of victims into grotesque forms mirroring the mental mechanisms of dehumanization. With each page turn, the victims’ humanity is restored, making their suffering undeniable.

The Book of Genocides is an unsettling experience, shot through with the emotional gravity of horrific events—not just historical memories but ongoing realities, painful truths that shape our world and demand our action.