Making and Unmaking Nations

Making and Unmaking Nations

Top of Mind with Julie Rose

Making and Unmaking Nations, Fighting Wildfires

Episode: Making and Unmaking Nations, Fighting Wildfires

  • May 29, 2015 9:00 pm
  • 50:52 mins

Scott Straus, Professor of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.  His latest book is “Making and Unmaking Nations: War, Leadership, and Genocide in Modern Africa.”  At this moment the word genocide is being used in context with the Rohinga in Myanamar, the Yazidis in Iraq. It represents that ultimate failure of politics, as Scott Straus says in his new book, “Making and Unmaking Nations.”  His book is not merely a study of genocide, but a cautionary tale. Genocide need not be the inevitable outcome of war, hate and greed, he argues. Ideas matter immensely – particularly the ideas espoused by the founding leaders of a nation. Does this “founding narrative” focus on dialogue and inclusion? Or is it rooted in the superiority of one group over another?  That founding narrative, says Straus, is what made the difference between a nation like Rwanda where some 800,000 Tutsis were killed because of their ethnicity and Cote d’Ivoire, Mali or Senegal – all of which stepped to the brink of genocide, but then stepped back.

Other Segments

Fighting Wildfires

51m

Jason Forthover from U.S. Government’s “Fire Lab” in Missoula, Montana, a mechanical engineer with 20 years of firefighting experience.  Bret Butler from the Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory where he researches heat  and combustion processes in wildland fire.  Thomas Fletcher, professor of Chemical Engineering here at BYU, where he researches ignition and combustion.  Jeff Kline, Fire Operations Specialist at the Utah Bureau of Land Management, has extensive experience fighting fires.  A panelist of experts discusses wildfires.  The season of brush blazes and forest conflagrations is upon us, and these fires are getting bigger and hotter.  Data from the National Interagency Fire Center Show an exponential growth since the 1980s in mega-fires that burn over 100,000 acres.

Jason Forthover from U.S. Government’s “Fire Lab” in Missoula, Montana, a mechanical engineer with 20 years of firefighting experience.  Bret Butler from the Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory where he researches heat  and combustion processes in wildland fire.  Thomas Fletcher, professor of Chemical Engineering here at BYU, where he researches ignition and combustion.  Jeff Kline, Fire Operations Specialist at the Utah Bureau of Land Management, has extensive experience fighting fires.  A panelist of experts discusses wildfires.  The season of brush blazes and forest conflagrations is upon us, and these fires are getting bigger and hotter.  Data from the National Interagency Fire Center Show an exponential growth since the 1980s in mega-fires that burn over 100,000 acres.