Genocide is the deliberate, systematic attempt to destroy a racial, ethnic, national, or religious group. In AP World, it anchors Topic 7.8 (Mass Atrocities After 1900), with the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, the Holodomor, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, and Rwanda as the key examples.
Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, ethnic, national, or religious group. It goes beyond wartime killing. The defining feature is intent, meaning the perpetrators are trying to wipe out the group itself, whether by mass killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, or forcing living conditions designed to destroy the group physically.
For AP World, genocide is the centerpiece of Topic 7.8, Mass Atrocities After 1900. The CED's pattern is consistent across cases. Extremist groups gain power, often during war, political upheaval, or major social change, and target a specific population for destruction. The illustrative examples you need to know are the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during and after World War I, the Holodomor in Soviet Ukraine in the 1920s-1930s, the Nazi killing of Jews in the Holocaust during World War II, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s, and the Tutsi in Rwanda in the 1990s.
Genocide sits at the heart of Unit 7 (Global Conflict, 1900-Present), directly supporting learning objective 7.8.A, which asks you to explain the causes and consequences of mass atrocities from 1900 to the present. The essential knowledge is blunt about the cause. The rise of extremist groups in power led to the attempted destruction of specific populations, most notably the Holocaust. Genocide also bleeds into Unit 8 (8.1.A), because the horror of World War II atrocities reshaped the postwar world, fueling anti-imperialist sentiment, the restructuring of states, and later post-decolonization violence like Rwanda. If you can explain why genocides cluster in the 20th century (total war, extremist ideologies like fascism and communism, state power amplified by modern technology), you've got a ready-made causation argument for the exam.
Holocaust (Unit 7)
The Holocaust is the genocide the CED names explicitly. The Nazi killing of Jews during World War II is your go-to example of an extremist regime using state power and modern bureaucracy to attempt the destruction of an entire population.
Armenian Genocide (Unit 7)
The Ottoman Empire's destruction of its Armenian population during and after World War I shows that genocide thrives in wartime chaos. It's chronologically the first of the CED's illustrative examples, which makes it useful for continuity-over-time arguments about the 20th century.
Cambodian Genocide (Units 7-8)
The Khmer Rouge killed roughly a quarter of Cambodia's population in the late 1970s while trying to build a radical agrarian communist society. This case connects genocide to Cold War context, since Cambodia's destabilization was tangled up in the Vietnam War era.
Crimes Against Humanity (Unit 7)
Genocide is the most extreme crime against humanity, but the broader category covers widespread attacks on civilians that don't aim to erase a whole group. The post-WWII legal order (think Nuremberg) created both concepts to hold states accountable.
Genocide shows up most often in multiple-choice and short-answer questions built on Topic 7.8. Typical stems ask you to identify a primary cause of mass atrocities (the answer almost always points to extremist groups in power), compare cases (Rwanda's Hutu-led killing of Tutsis is frequently framed as mirroring the Holocaust), or analyze a passage about a specific genocide like Cambodia. No released FRQ has used the term verbatim, but it's strong evidence for causation and continuity essays on 20th-century global conflict. The move the exam rewards is going beyond naming an atrocity. Explain the cause (extremism plus state power plus wartime upheaval) and the consequence (international law, refugee flows, postwar restructuring of states).
Ethnic cleansing aims to remove a group from a territory, through forced deportation, terror, or violence, so the group leaves. Genocide aims to destroy the group itself, so it ceases to exist. The two often overlap in practice (the Armenian deportations turned genocidal), but on the exam the distinguishing word is intent. Removal is cleansing; destruction is genocide.
Genocide is the deliberate, systematic attempt to destroy a racial, ethnic, national, or religious group, and intent to destroy is what separates it from other mass violence.
The CED's primary cause for 20th-century genocides is the rise of extremist groups in power, such as the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge, and Hutu extremists in Rwanda.
Know the five CED illustrative examples: Armenians in the Ottoman Empire (WWI era), the Holodomor in Soviet Ukraine (1920s-30s), the Holocaust (WWII), Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge (late 1970s), and the Tutsi in Rwanda (1990s).
Genocides cluster around wars and political upheaval because total war and revolutionary ideology give states both the motive and the machinery for mass destruction.
Genocide differs from ethnic cleansing, which seeks to remove a group from a territory rather than destroy the group entirely.
The atrocities of World War II reshaped the postwar order, feeding into the anti-imperialist sentiment and restructuring of states covered in Topic 8.1.
Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, ethnic, national, or religious group. It's the core concept of Topic 7.8, Mass Atrocities After 1900, where the CED ties it to the rise of extremist groups in power.
The CED lists five illustrative examples: the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire during and after WWI, the Holodomor in Soviet Ukraine in the 1920s-30s, the Holocaust during WWII, the Cambodian Genocide under the Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s, and the Rwandan Genocide against the Tutsi in the 1990s.
Ethnic cleansing forces a group out of a territory; genocide tries to destroy the group entirely. The line can blur, since deportations like the Armenian death marches became genocidal, but intent to destroy is what legally and historically defines genocide.
The AP World CED lists Ukraine in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s among its examples of genocide, ethnic violence, or attempted destruction of specific populations. The Holodomor was a man-made famine under Stalin that killed millions of Ukrainians, and many historians and governments classify it as genocide.
Yes, the systematic killing the CED calls the Nazi killing of the Jews took place during World War II, but the anti-Semitism and extremist Nazi ideology behind it built up through the 1930s. On the exam, treat the Holocaust as the prime example of an extremist regime in power attempting to destroy a specific population.