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About this Book

Intentional destruction of cultural heritage has a long history. Contemporary examples include the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan, mosques in Xinjiang, China, mausoleums in Timbuktu, Mali, and Greco-Roman remains in Syria. Cultural heritage destruction invariably accompanies assaults on civilians, making heritage attacks impossible to disentangle from the mass atrocities of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. Both seek to eliminate people and the heritage with which they identify.

Cultural Heritage and Mass Atrocities assembles thirty-eight experts from the heritage, social science, humanitarian, legal, and military communities. Focusing on immovable cultural heritage vulnerable to attack, the volume’s guiding framework is the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), a United Nations resolution adopted unanimously in 2005 to permit international intervention against crimes of war or genocide. Based on the three pillars of prevent, react, and rebuild, R2P offers today’s policymakers a set of existing laws and international norms that can and—as this book argues—must be extended to the protection of cultural heritage. Essays consider the global value of cultural heritage and document recent attacks on people and sites in China, Guatemala, Iraq, Mali, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen. Comprehensive sections on vulnerable populations as well as the role of international law and the military offer readers critical insights and point toward research, policy, and action agendas to protect both people and cultural heritage. The table of contents along with a concise abstract of each chapter is offered online in Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, and Spanish to facilitate robust, global dissemination of the strategies and tactics offered in this pathbreaking call to action.

About the Editors

James Cuno is president emeritus of the J. Paul Getty Trust.

Thomas G. Weiss is Presidential Professor of Political Science and director emeritus of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at the City University of New York Graduate Center.


Reflecting Getty’s commitment to open content, Cultural Heritage and Mass Atrocities is available online at www.getty.edu/publications/cultural-heritage-mass-atrocities/ and may be downloaded free of charge in multiple formats. For readers who wish to have a bound reference copy, an English-language paperback edition is available for purchase.

648 pages

7 x 10 inches

58 color and 12 b/w illustrations, 9 maps, 2 tables

ISBN 978-1-60606-807-6

paperback

Citation Information

Chicago

Cuno, James, and Thomas G. Weiss, eds. Cultural Heritage and Mass Atrocities. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022. https://www.getty.edu/publications/cultural-heritage-mass-atrocities/.

MLA

Cuno, James, and Thomas G. Weiss, editors. Cultural Heritage and Mass Atrocities. J Paul Getty Museum, 2022. https://www.getty.edu/publications/cultural-heritage-mass-atrocities/. Accessed 15 Aug. 2025.

Permanent URL

https://www.getty.edu/publications/cultural-heritage-mass-atrocities/

Revision History

Any revisions or corrections made to this publication after the first edition date will be listed here and in the project repository at github.com/thegetty/cultural-heritage-mass-atrocities/, where a more detailed version history is available. The revisions branch of the project repository, when present, will also show any changes currently under consideration but not yet published here.

September 15, 2022

  • First edition

Other Formats

This publication was created using Quire™, a multiformat publishing tool from Getty.

© 2022 J. Paul Getty Trust

CC BY-NC

The text of this work, unless otherwise indicated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. All images are reproduced with the permission of the rights holders acknowledged in captions and expressly excluded from the CC BY-NC license covering the rest of this publication. These images may not be reproduced, copied, transmitted, or manipulated without consent from the owners, who reserve all rights.

“Who Are We? Identity and Cultural Heritage” is reproduced from The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity by Kwame Anthony Appiah. Copyright © 2018 by Kwame Anthony Appiah. Used by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation and Profile Books Ltd.

Published by Getty Publications, Los Angeles
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Los Angeles, California 90049-1682
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Laura diZerega, Project Editor
Greg Albers, Digital Manager
Martin J. Burke, Manuscript Editor
Erin Cecele Dunigan and Dina Murokh, Assistant Digital Editors
Victoria Gallina, Production
Jeffrey Cohen, Cover Designer
Nancy Rivera, Image and Rights Acquisition
Eriksen Translations, Translation Services

Getty Publications gratefully acknowledges Morgan Conger, senior project manager in the Office of the President and CEO, J. Paul Getty Trust, for her work on this publication.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  • Names: Cuno, James B., editor. | Weiss, Thomas G. (Thomas George), 1946– editor.
  • Title: Cultural heritage and mass atrocities / edited by James Cuno and Thomas G. Weiss.
  • Description: First edition. | Los Angeles : Getty Publications, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references. | Summary: “This volume focuses on protecting vulnerable, immovable cultural heritage using the framework provided by the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), a 2005 United Nations resolution permitting international intervention against war crimes. Essays offer critical insights from the political, humanitarian, and cultural heritage sectors, emphasizing strategies for safeguarding both culture and people” — Provided by publisher.
  • Identifiers: LCCN 2022013796 (print) | LCCN 2022013797 (ebook) | ISBN 9781606068076 (paperback) | ISBN 9781606068106 | ISBN 9781606068090 (mobi) | ISBN 9781606068083 (epub)
  • Subjects: LCSH: Cultural property—Protection. | Cultural property—Protection—International cooperation. | Cultural property—Destruction and pillage. | Historic preservation—International cooperation. | War and civilization.
  • Classification: LCC CC135 .C823 2022 (print) | LCC CC135 (ebook) | DDC 363.6/9–dc23/eng/20220528
  • LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022013796
  • LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022013797

Front cover: Two views of the courtyard and ablutions fountains, Great Umayyad Mosque of Aleppo, Aleppo, Syria, with structural damage, as of December 2013, documented in the bottom photograph. Images: Joel Carillet / Getty Images (top); Molhem Barakat / Reuters / Alamy Stock Photo (bottom)