Robert Melson (born 1937) is professor emeritus of political science and a member of the

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

studies program at

Purdue University Purdue University is a Public university#United States, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded ...

. From 2003 to 2005, he was the President of the

International Association of Genocide Scholars The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) is an international non-partisan organization that seeks to further research and teaching about the nature, causes, and consequences of genocide, including the Armenian genocide, the Holoc ...

(IAGS). In 2006 and 2007, he was the Cathy Cohen-Lasry Distinguished Professor in the Strassler Family Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at

Clark University Clark University is a private research university in Worcester, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1887 with a large endowment from its namesake Jonas Gilman Clark, a prominent businessman, Clark was one of the first modern research uni ...

Worcester, Massachusetts Worcester ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Massachusetts, second-most populous city in the U.S. state of Massachusetts and the list of United States cities by population, 113th most populous city in the United States. Named after Worcester ...

Early life

Melson survived

the Holocaust in Poland The Holocaust saw the ghettoization, robbery, deportation and mass murder of Jews, alongside other groups under Nazi racial theories, similar racial pretexts in Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), occupied Poland by the Nazi Germany. Over th ...

, escaping a pogrom with his parents and later living under false papers.

Work

His primary area of expertise is in ethnic conflict and

genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...

. His interest in the topic derives from his family's experience in Europe, as well as from his field work in

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

in 1964–65, just before the onset of the

Nigerian Civil War The Nigerian Civil War (6 July 1967 – 15 January 1970), also known as the Biafran War, Nigeria-Biafra War, or Biafra War, was fought between Nigeria and the Republic of Biafra, a Secession, secessionist state which had declared its independen ...

. The story of his family's shared survival during the Holocaust is told in ''False Papers'' (University of Illinois Press, 2000), which was a finalist for the 2001

National Jewish Book Award The Jewish Book Council (Hebrew: ), founded in 1943, is an American organization encouraging and contributing to Jewish literature. The goal of the council, as stated on its website, is "to promote the reading, writing and publishing of qual ...

. Among his other books are, ''Revolution and Genocide: On the Origins of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust'' (University of Chicago Press, 1992/6). He has published (with Howard Wolpe, eds.), ''

: Modernization and the Politics of Communalism''.''Paradigms of Genocide: The Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, and Contemporary Mass Destructions'', Robert Melson, p. 156 (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1971). His articles have been published in the

American Political Science Review The ''American Political Science Review'' (''APSR'') is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering all areas of political science. It is an official journal of the American Political Science Association and is published on their behalf ...

, Comparative Studies in Society and History,

Holocaust and Genocide Studies The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, ...

, and elsewhere.

References

External links

Revolution and Genocide - An Interview with Robert Melson
1937 births Living people Clark University faculty Purdue University faculty Polish Holocaust survivors Polish emigrants to the United States Historians of the Armenian genocide American expatriates in Nigeria {{polisci-bio-stub