Bradley Campbell

The Geometry of Genocide: A Study in Pure Sociology

22:05 min

Sociology

272 pages, 2015

In The Geometry of Genocide, Bradley Campbell examines mass killing through an innovative sociological framework. Rather than viewing genocide as incomprehensible evil, Campbell reveals it as a form of social control — a reaction to perceived deviance. Using five detailed case studies spanning California's indigenous massacres to the Holocaust, he demonstrates how "social geometry" determines who lives and dies. The short shows that genocide emerges from specific social conditions: when ethnic groups experience changes in status and power (understratification) while maintaining social distance between them. Campbell's theory explains the puzzling observation that many perpetrators simultaneously rescue some victims while killing others, based on their social closeness. Campbell's work offers a powerful analytical tool by placing genocide within broader patterns of human conflict, suggesting that as global cultural connections increase, genocide may gradually decline.

Bradley Campbell

Bradley Campbell is a professor of sociology whose research focuses on moral conflict, social control, and the sociological understanding of violence. His work has pioneered the application of pure sociology to understand patterns of ethnic violence and genocide, emphasizing how social geometry - rather than individual psychology - shapes extreme human behavior. Campbell's methodical case-study approach across diverse historical contexts has established him as a leading voice in using sociological theory to explain seemingly incomprehensible human behaviors.

Chapters

Genocide functions as social control against perceived deviance, arising from patterns of social time (overdiversity and understratification) and social space (distance and inequality) rather than being psychologically incomprehensible.

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