Tuđman draws heavily on the works of historians like Barbara Tuchman (specifically her book A Distant Mirror about the "calamitous 14th century") to argue that mass violence, genocide, and political retribution are not anomalies, but recurring, perhaps even systematic, features of human society. The book is structured as a series of chapters exploring specific themes, including:
Tuđman began drafting the work in the early 1980s, framing it as a "treatise on the history and philosophy of violence" ( franjo tudman bespuca povijesne zbiljnosti pdf verified