In the years immediately after World War II, the Holocaust was little studied. That all changed with the publication of Raul Hilberg’s book, The Destruction of the European Jews. Steven Katz, professor of Jewish Holocaust Studies at Boston University and former Director of the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies, introduces the best Holocaust books.    

More than 100 years after the Armenian genocide, author Tom de Waal chooses books that sidestep the politics and bring us back to the human story. He picks the best memoirs of the Armenian genocide.

Racism is not innate but emerges under special conditions, says the King’s College professor and author of the sweeping history Racisms: From the Crusades to the Twentieth Century. He chooses five books that inspired him.

Genocide isn’t the preserve of fanatics and racist thugs – it’s part of human nature, says Stanford historian Norman Naimark. He tells us how genocide happens, who denies it, where it could return, and the best books to read about it.

The actress and humanitarian activist says that in any genocide 95 per cent of us are capable of being led or enticed to a tipping point where we can pick up a machete and hack to death strangers and friends alike.

When reading books, we often empathize with a main character and find redemption in our emotional response to their fate. But it’s more important to think, says Bosnian novelist Aleksandar Hemon. Here, he picks the best books on ‘man’s inhumanity to man.’

Having served as the International Co-Prosecutor of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal in Cambodia, Andrew Cayley QC draws on his firsthand experience to nominate the best books on war crimes.

The journalist and author of We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, an account of the Rwandan genocide, explores five books on the events that left 800,000 dead in 100 days.

The Times journalist calls Simon Wiesenthal a liar. He’s just not this secular saint that everyone says he is – his memoirs all contradict each other and are at odds with the rest of the evidence

David Chandler, one of the foremost western scholars on Cambodian history—and author of the first study of S-21, the Khmer Rouge interrogation centre—recommends the best books on Cambodia.