What distinguishes genocide from murder, and even from acts of political murder that claim as many victims, is the intent. The crime is wanting to make a people extinct. The idea is the crime.
Philip GourevitchPolitical corruption is to Rhode Islanders as smog is to people who live in Los Angeles: nobody complains of its absence, but when it rolls around everyone feels right at home.
Philip GourevitchMike Stanton is our preeminent aficionado and raconteur of Rhode Islandโs flamboyantly criminal political follies, and The Prince of Providence is the chronicle of a great American rogue, Mayor Buddy Cianciโa paragon of charisma and corruption.
Philip GourevitchThe piled-up dead of political violence are a generic staple of our information diet these days, and according to the generic report all massacres are created equal: the dead are innocent, the killers monstrous, the surrounding politics insane or nonexistent...The anonymous dead and their anonymous killers become their own context. The horror becomes absurd.
Philip Gourevitch