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Table 1: War-Related Deaths per 1, 000 of the GlobalPopulation, by Century, between 1000 and 1950 A. D. "global pop.(millions)Century (A. D. )11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20*320 360 360 350 425 500 545 720 1200 2500¹ of wars~~47 39 67 6292 123113 115 164 120war deathsper 1000of the globalpopulation. 18 . 36 1. 14 1. 432. 07 3. 2311. 21 9. 72 16. 19 44. 37Eckhardt computed figures only for the first half of the twentiethcentury.*~ He defined "war" as "any armed conflict, involving at least one government, and causing "" at least 1, 000 civilianand military deaths per year, including war-related deaths from famine and disease.has estimated that, while more than thirty-five millionpeople "have died in this century's international anddomestic wars, revolutions, and violent conflicts, " morethan 100 million have been killed "apart from thepursuit of any continuing military action or campaign, "mainly at the hands of "totalitarian or extreme authoritariangovernments" in "massacres, genocides and massexecutions of "" [their] own citizens. Similarly, HelenFein has estimated that genocides between 1945 and1980 killed more than twice as many people as did warsduring the same period."Thus, it appears that, despite serious methodologicallimitations, there is in fact evidence to support theassertion that our present century is very probably themost violent and lethal in history. When the nuclearweapons currently deployed by several nations are takeninto consideration, there can be no doubt that thiscentury has the potential to be unequivocally the mostmurderous. Nuclear weapons are so destructive thata nuclear war could, in a very real sense, "end history"by destroying civilization.STRUCTURAL VIOLENCEWhile the literature on collective violence focusespredominantly on genocide and warfare, it is importantto note that there are other forms of governmental masskilling. One important, though insufficiently appreciated,means by which governmental policies result inlarge numbers of deaths is the creation or tolerance ofharmful social conditions. According to WilliamEckhardt and Gernot Kohler, "While one group ofscholars in the field restricts the term, 'violence' tomean armed violence in wars and revolutions, otherstake a broader view and subsume both armed andstructural components under the term 'violence. 'Structural violence is the violence created by social,political, and economic institutions and structures whichmay lead to as much death and harm to persons as doesarmed violence. "" Horowitz mentions a relatedconcept, benign neglect, in his important essay,"Functional and Existential Visions of Genocide;"where he alludes to "one shadowy area of genocide thatpermits the state to take lives by indirection, forexample by virtue of benign neglect, or death due todemographic causes. " Unfortunately, he does notdevelop this intriguing concept beyond commenting thatthe efforts a government makes to reduce deaths frommalnutrition, disease, and other "natural" causesconstitute a "central indication of how a society valueslife. "~As devastating as armed violence has been duringthe twentieth century, structural violence has resultedin many more deaths. In fact, on the basis of carefuldemographic analysis, Eckhardt and Kohler concludethat "about ninety-five'percent of the total violence inthe first three quarters of the twentieth-century couldbe attributed to structural violence. "" More recently,Eckhardt has estimated that, during the twentiethcentury, structural violence "has caused a total of some1600 million deaths, or approximately nineteen milliondeaths per year. ""This form of governmental mass killing requiresurgent attention, not only because of the sheer scaleof the death tolls, but also because it is directly relatedto armed violence in at least two ways. First, structuralviolence, by causing suffering and death as the resultGenocide aiid Modern War. 119