A. Dirk Moses’ The Problems of Genocide builds on his decades of work in the field of genocide research. This review article looks at the impact the book has had to date before considering its two key arguments – that genocide’s invention in the 1940s distilled a centuries old ‘language of transgression’, which in turn served to justify and normalise what Moses dubs ‘liberal permanent security’. I conclude by considering the possibilities and limits of ‘conceptual history’.
Canberra Times (1970) Aborigines present petition to the UN. Canberra Times, 17 October, p. 10.
2.
CurthoysA (2005) Raphael Lemkin’s Tasmania: An introduction. Patterns of Prejudice39(2): 162–169.
3.
Department of External Affairs (1970) United Nations – Human Rights – Aboriginal Australians and other Minorities. National Archives of Australia: A1383, 923/9/3 PART 3.
4.
GhattasS (2021) Black power, aboriginal genocide and the politics of identity. Journal of Genocide Research. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2021.1950288(accessed 6 January 2023).
KoselleckR (1989) Social history and conceptual history. International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society2(3): 308–325.
8.
MosesAD (2003) Revisionism and denial. In: ManneR (ed.) Whitewash: On Keith Windschuttle’s Fabrication of Aboriginal History. Collingwood: Black Inc., pp. 337–370.
9.
MosesAD (2007) German Intellectuals and the Nazi Past. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
10.
MosesAD (2021a) The Problems of Genocide: Permanent Security and the Language of Transgression. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
