ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the development of massive encyclopedias and bibliographies on genocide and the Holocaust in particular. It also emphasizes problems of war and peace, especially the variety of twentieth-century doctrines on the subject. The Idea of War and Peace in Contemporary Social and Philosophical Theory came out at a time when Europe and the United States were recovering from World War II. The entrance of the United States in the Vietnam War had a bracing impact on social theory. Taking Lives in each of its editions attempted to take stock of contemporary events, but increasingly, with each passing edition, an awareness grew that deep tragedies are sparked by long waves of social disintegration and state intervention. The master tendency of the century — the arbitrary and willful taking of massive numbers of innocent lives by states and tyrants, deserves to retain a special place of dishonor in the affairs of our century.
