ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book describes the growth and development, foundations, key debates, and core concerns of Perpetrator Studies, an emerging interdisciplinary field in the humanities and social sciences. It aims to be as broad and comprehensive as possible, nevertheless has a strong emphasis on the Holocaust and includes chapters that cover these key moments and debates in the development of the field. The book offers a thematic and conceptual approach that facilitates a comparative analysis across historical, geographic, and disciplinary lines with the aim of allowing different disciplinary perspectives to confront one another. It deals with diverse disciplinary methodologies and concerns, rather than organizing it along traditional disciplinary lines or exclusively on a case-study basis. The book addresses questions from both of the aforementioned categories from the perspective of their home discipline or field.
