Nationalism, ethnic conflict and genocide : a sociological analysis of the factors contributing to the Armenian genocide and the Jewish Holocaust / by Kelly K. Cooley.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the causes of genocide from a macro sociological, comparative/historical perspective to identify possible patterns in genocidal crimes. The more aware we are about genocide and its causes the more aware we can become to its early warning signs. This study examines the social, economic and political conditions that prevailed in the period prior to and during genocides, including the nature and role of nationalism and the class forces promoting such ideology justifying and reinforcing national and ethnic divisions that often lead to civil war and violence on a grand scale. This thesis takes up a comparison of these conditions through two case studies, the Armenian genocide of 1915 and the Jewish Holocaust of the 1930s and 1940s.