The Killing Compartments: The Mentality of Mass Murder

by Abram De Swaan,
The Huffington Post, January 21, 2015

As far as we know, human beings have always engaged in mass murder. With the emergence of the nation-state, however, sustained violence, including wars between more or less symmetric parties and the mass extermination of unarmed civilians, has occurred less frequently, but on a much larger scale.