In this haunting graphic narrative, an award-winning writer, artist, and descendant of genocide survivors brings history’s darkest horrors to life, calling on us to remember, repair, and resist.
The Book of Genocides is a haunting graphic narrative that compels readers to confront the most harrowing chapters of human history not as distant events but as visceral experiences. Dana Mashoian Walrath covers ten major atrocities across five centuries: the mass slaughter of the First Peoples of the Americas, the brutalization of Black Americans, the devastation of Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders, the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, the Cambodian killing fields, the Rwandan genocide, the Bosnian genocide, the deadly persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar, and the genocide in Gaza.
Walrath makes plain that the purpose of genocide is always a land grab, and its central apparatus is dehumanization: each chapter delves into how dehumanization operates, not just through violence but through the political and intellectual systems that enable it. The book’s unique interactive design allows readers to reshape images of victims into grotesque forms mirroring the mental mechanisms of dehumanization. With each page turn, the victims’ humanity is restored, making their suffering undeniable.
The Book of Genocides is an unsettling experience, shot through with the emotional gravity of horrific events—not just historical memories but ongoing realities, painful truths that shape our world and demand our action.
“DANA Walrath is an unflinching guide through the long sweep of humanity’s most shameful episodes. This is how art answers back.”
—JOE SACCO, author of PALESTINE and THE ONCE AND FUTURE RIOT
“Essential reading. History lesson. Cautionary tale. The Book of Genocides is all this and much more. This breathtaking graphic narrative is as brave as it is beautiful.”
—NICK SOUSANIS, author of UNFLATTENING
“Necessary and heartbreaking. I hope this book helps future generations avoid the mistakes that brought us here.”
—DEENA MOHAMED, author of SHUBEIK LUBEIK
“Through an ingenious welding of words and pictures, the personal and the historical, Dana Mashoian Walrath helps us overcome our resistance to the horrific and urgent subject of genocide…Walrath’s vision is deeply humane, and her message couldn't be timelier.”
—ALISON BECHDEL, author of SPENT and FUN HOME
"A brilliant and imaginative book that helps us grapple with some of the most immoral and devastating acts of violence in human history."
—CYNTHIA LEITICH SMITH, author of ON A WING AND A TEAR
