MY WAR CRIMINAL

'Personal Encounters With An Architect of Genocide', this is a chilling portrait of Radovan Karadzic, giving us an eye-opening new context not only for the Bosnian War, but also how fear can be harnessed and diverted to violent political ends. A remarkable blend of biography, history and psychiatry, the book is based on extraordinary access to a notorious Serbian leader and is scrupulously researched by this skilled interviewer. Stern explores the boundaries of good and evil through hours of interviews with the convicted mass murderer and complex emotions are unleashed on both sides as the interviewer circles a wily subject charmed at skill, obfuscation, misdirection and intimidation. It is an investigation into the nature of violence, terror and trauma. Between October 2014 and November 2016, global terrorism expert Jessica Stern held this series of conversations in a prison cell in The Hague with the Bosnian Serb former politician who had been indicted for genocide and other war crimes. The encounter would alter her understandings of the mechanics of fear, motivations of violence and the psychology of those who perpetrate mass atrocities on a state level who target non-combatants in violation of ethical norms and international law. How do leaders persuade ordinary people to kill their neighbours? What happens when an ethnic or racial group loses its dominant position in society? How do leaders harness fear and weaponize it and target minorities with violence? What is the 'eco system' that creates and nurtures genocidal leaders and could anything about their personal histories, personalities or exposure to historical trauma shed light on their behaviour? Karadzic was once a brilliant and often charming psychiatrist and poet who spent 12 years in hiding, disguising himself as an energy healer. A deeply insightful and chilling book. 304pp.