ABSTRACT
In 1994, leaders within the Rwandan state and military organized a systematic campaign of violence against the minority Tutsi population of that country. Given the scale and character of violence in Rwanda in 1994- especially the case's unequivocal status as genocide- the Holocaust has been a frequent comparative point of reference. Even though some scholars of genocide may wish otherwise, the Holocaust remains the paradigmatic case of genocide in the popular and to some extent scholarly imagination. The place of the Holocaust in the analysis and interpretation of the Rwandan genocide is partly a function of the intellectual history of the Rwandan case. Prior to the genocide, Rwanda had a minimal international presence, in particular in the English-speaking world. Genocides may have distinct normative dimensions, but genocides are also social phenomena that may be examined comparatively as other social phenomena, such as revolution, the welfare state, and civil war, are.
