The local dynamics of the 1994 Rwandan genocide have remained poorly understood. Scott Straus demonstrates that although a ‘new consensus’ (pp. 31–40) has dismissed the ‘tribal hatred’ model, this consensus tends to overemphasise the ‘intentionalist’ role of the elite, failing to account for the ‘middle and the bottom’ (p. 2). Through a ‘more micro-level, social scientific investigation’ (p. 40) Straus seeks to remedy these lacunae.

Chapters 2 and 3 consider the national and regional levels, arguing that rather than a ‘scrupulous plan to commit genocide’ (p. 43) we must consider a ‘dynamics of escalation’ (p. 63) a ‘contingent process’ (p. 66) of ‘cumulative radicalisation’ (p. 12). This theme is pursued in the following chapter through a micro-comparative study of five communes. Rather than an a priori ‘machine of killing’ (p. 92) Straus suggests that immediately following the assassination of President Juvénal Habyarimana (6 April 1994) there existed a ‘space of opportunity’ (p. 65), that a context of uncertainty and insecurity, coupled with a call by hardliners at the state level to ‘destroy the Tutsi enemy’, created a ‘new field of contestation at the local level’ (p. 88), an ‘intra-Hutu struggle for dominance and authority’. Although this dynamic played out differently in different places, Straus demonstrates a common ‘cascade of tipping points’ (p. 92) that enabled ‘hardliners’ to establish their authority. Chapters 4 and 5 are the core of the book drawing on interviews with 210 convicted or self-confessed génocidaires. Straus demonstrates that although prior to the genocide there was, among his respondents, an awareness of ‘different social categories’ (p. 130), ‘ethnic antipathy’ (p. 128) did not drive mass participation in the genocide. Rather, interviews portray a nucleus of ultra-violent racist ‘thugs’ (p. 119) who intimidated and coerced the majority of perpetrators through ‘in-group coercion and social pressure’ (p. 139). Ultimately, most participated ‘because they feared the consequences of not doing so’ (p. 139) and because of fear generated by a context saturated with the ‘language of war’ (p. 151). Straus pursues this theme in chapter 6 regarding informant views on the ‘purpose’ of the violence. A key response is that the assassination of Habyarimana ‘gave wartime propaganda a new resonance’ (p. 172) combined with a belief that killing was ‘de facto policy’ (p. 173). Chapter 7 reviews previous episodes of violence in Rwanda and concludes that a combination of factors (political change; armed attack; uncertainty and acute insecurity) were always present and ‘violence a means to assert [threatened] power’ (p. 176). Crucially, Straus notes that in previous episodes, state authorities intervened to stop killing once political authority was stabilised. He argues that in 1994, the continuing war prevented such intervention and that ‘extermination was ethnic massacring without end’ (p. 200). The final chapter considers the Rwandan state, highlighting the importance of institutional continuity; topography; dense settlement; and pre-existing practices of civilian mobilisation. The conclusion contains an insightful discussion of comparative lessons.

Although one cannot fault the study's thoroughness, the early discussion of ‘systematic collection and analysis of evidence’ (p. xi) creating a ‘comprehensive account of genocide’ (p. 3) raises the spectre of an unobtainable Archimedean point. The rest of the book, however, has a more circumspect tone, refusing to claim the ‘perfect validity’ (p. 140) of results. A great strength of the book is its conversation with existing theory. This exchange is always constructive and conveys a refreshing sense of research as a collaborative, collegial endeavour.

This book rightly sits alongside Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men and Alex Hinton's Why Did They Kill? as an essential contribution to understanding mass atrocity.