This groundbreaking examination of death squads, which exist worldwide, provides a historical perspective of how governments use death squads and how the participation of non-state forces is an extreme instance of the "subcontracting" of tasks characteristic of modern states. Death squads are not simply a product of the Cold War, or of "weak" third-world nations, but are linked to a crisis of the modern state. This collection brings experts from around the world to look at death squads in places such as El Salvador, Weimar Germany, Bosnia, India, Indonesia, Brazil and South Africa.