Reigns of Terror, Patricia Marchak, Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003, pp. xi, 306

In Reigns of Terror, Patricia Marchak investigates “the causes and conditions that underlie crimes against humanity conducted under the aegis of states” (x). According to Marchak, most works on genocide (attacks on citizens because of their ethnicity or religion) and politicide (the eradication of people for mainly political reasons) are far too simplistic. She maintains that factors such as racism, ethnic conflict, authoritarian regimes or ideologies of intolerance and hatred are usually important, but each is nonetheless insufficient in explaining situations in the twentieth century in which governments attacked their own citizens.