The Book that Introduced and Defined the Concept of Genocide. In this pathbreaking study Polish emigre Raphael Lemkin [1900-1959] coined the term "genocide" and defined it is a subject of international law. While the term has come to mean the extermination of a people, Lemkin used it to describe all programs that sought to increase "Aryan" birthrate while working to exterminate the social, cultural and economic independence of non-Germanic peoples. This study was an elaboration of ideas he first proposed in 1933 in his address to the Fifth International Conference for the Unification of Penal Law (1933), which argued that attacks on racial, religious and ethnic groups should be considered international crimes. Important for the prosecution of the Nazis, it helped to establish the framework for all subsequent efforts to punish crimes against humanity.

Samantha Power, Carr Center at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government and author of "A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide, winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize.

William A. Schabas, OC, MRIA, Professor of Human Rights Law, National University of Ireland, Galway and Director, Irish Centre for Human Rights; Global Legal Scholar, University of Warwick; Professor, Queen's University Belfast; Visiting Fellow, All Souls College, University Of Oxford (2008).