Sociocide

The individual chapters in Sociocide are interdisciplinary in nature and cover a wide range of topics including the anthropology of burials, scapegoating, torture, pariahs, apologies, and the Coronavirus pandemic, taking the wars in Iraq and Bosnia and their consequences as persistent reference points. This reviewer found all the chapters fascinating, informative, and highly thought provoking, and is sure that other readers will too. The final chapter, based on the classical trinity of Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim, and Max Weber, will be particularly illuminating for sociologists. Given Doubt's theoretical preferences, Weber's anxiety, inducing consideration of charismatic "authority," perhaps holds the most relevance, especially considering the last US president and his "sociocidal" propensities.... [R]eading this book should be a highly fruitful and rewarding exercise for a great many people. Recommended.

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Keith Doubt's Sociocide is an important book that diagnoses the deep and worsening trouble the world is in. It is original, serious, well-informed, and clearly written--a tribute to an author who has not only read widely but lived seriously and spent time in one of the world's most troubled places. This is a must read not just for students and their teachers but for anyone who is willing to think about how much trouble the world is in.

-- Charles Lemert, University Professor of Social Theory, Emeritus, Wesleyan University

Georg Simmel once asked, 'How is society possible?' Keith Doubt flips the question on its head, turning to the dark side to investigate how society is undone, how it unravels. He does so in a far-ranging, interdisciplinary inquiry into the phenomenon he calls 'sociocide.' The book insightfully and humanely examines such varied topics as the meaning of the burial, the failure of the Dayton Accords, along with inquiries into the destructiveness of war, torture, scapegoating and pandemics. By focusing on society’s fragility, Doubt offers a timely reminder of its value.

-- Peter Kivisto, Augustana College and University of Helsinki

Keith Doubt has given us an all too rare 'theory' book so filled with humanity that one can be distracted by the beauty and artfulness of the narrative's trail. In Sociocide, Doubt suggests that humanity’s most egregious, yet most common practice—war--destroys the very social fabric that gives meaning to human beings: our collective construction of mutual support, empathy, culture, emotional and material sustenance. Capitalism, as the author then reminds us, is itself an economic system based on the same sociocidal principles of war—conquering and extraction, exploitation, production for the sake of destruction and waste. As Doubt charts us through this increasingly nightmarish landscape, we finally reach the stunning vista that he promised from the outset: the vision of an alternative social framework based on a human-centered value, principle, and practice. The future of society rests in our own hands, and Doubt has given us an intellectual and analytical compass to carry with us as we seek a stronger human purpose and walk through these hard moral times.

-- Corey W. Dolgon, Stonehill Col