The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing was written by one of the premier macro-historical sociologists writing in the early twenty-first century. Through his two-volume study of The Sources of Social Power, Mann carries forward the great tradition of Marx, Weber and Moore with his vast historical knowledge, his conceptual innovations (portraying power in its separate military, economic, political and ideological components), and his compelling normative concerns (for social justice and the revulsion of violence). The Dark Side sparkles with the erudition and normative concerns that characterize his earlier writings. And his portrayals of murderous acts by states taken against their own populations – often in contradiction to approaches I have taken on the same issues – reflect an understanding of process, contingency and the popular social base of grisly perfidy. Much of the book is so well grounded sociologically and historically that both the complexity of the particular and the patterns of the general are retained.

Yet in regard to the principal set of theses, he uses his erudition and keenness of subtle argument to cloud social reality rather than to clarify it. This is a strong charge to hold against a scholar of Mann's stature. Yet I believe it is fully justified. Rather than enumerate the sub-theses that are cogently developed, or summarize his enlightening reconstruction of events, I will focus here on my critique of his principal theses.

There are two separate points I will make to support my charge.