In this scholarly yet intensely personal history, author Edina Bećirević explores the widespread ethnic cleansing that occurred in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 through 1995, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Serbs against Bosnian Muslims that fully meet the criteria for genocide established after World War II by the Genocide Convention of 1948. An in-depth study of the devastating and dehumanizing effects of genocide on individual destinies and the mechanisms of its denial in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bećirević's essential history contextualizes the East Bosnian program of atrocities with respect to broader scholarly debates about the nature of genocide.

"“Becirevic walks the reader through the controversy surrounding the concept and definition of 'genocide,' then makes an energetic case that the term applies to the war waged by Serbian forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992–95.”—Foreign Affairs" - Foreign Affairs