This map, published by American geographer William Bunge in 1988, shows the regions where genocides have occurred in recent human history.

William Bunge, in addition to being considered a radical geographer by his colleagues, was a particularly active pacifist activist during the 1980s, when he also published the Atlas of Nuclear War.

This map is a magnificent piece of propaganda from the pacifist movements of that decade in the United States. Taking as a reference the shock of the global public after the genocide against the Jews during the Second World War was uncovered, Bunge published this map to raise awareness that, sadly, the Jewish genocide had only been one of many.

To do this, he paints all the regions of the world that have suffered genocide in red on a world map and the regions of those who have perpetrated these genocides in white. He does not provide many details, beyond referring to the Jewish genocide, the Armenian genocide and the Ainu genocide, as these are the genocides that occurred in the region of origin of the perpetrators.

In addition, it also includes text in the section with a direct message that pulls no punches: Hitler did not invent the murder of babies. Genocide is almost a universal final solution for enemies. But the other genocides—pre-Hitler, Hitlerian, and post-Hitlerian—have fallen into oblivion—the Gypsies, the Tasmanians, the Mohicans, all forgotten—so we must not forget the only genocide that is remembered, Hitler's killing of Jewish children.

The map was also distributed at numerous protests and peaceful demonstrations during the late 1980s.

Sources

• Regions of Recent and Frequently Repeated Genocide