A magisterial, dramatic account that reshapes the way we think and talk about the greatest crime in history.
Unrivaled in reach and scope, Holocaust illuminates the long march of events, from the Middle Ages to the modern era, which led to this great atrocity. It is a story of all Europe, of Nazis and their allies, the experience of wartime occupation, the suffering and strategies of marked victims, the failure of international rescue, and the success of individual rescuers. It alone in Holocaust literature negotiates the chasm between the two histories, that of the perpetrators and of the victims and their families, shining new light on German actions and Jewish reactions.
No other book in any language has so embraced this multifaceted story. Holocaust uniquely makes use of oral histories recorded by the authors over fifteen years across Europe and the United States, as well as never-before-analyzed archival documents, letters, and diaries; it contains in addition seventy-five illustrations and sixteen original maps, each accompanied by an extended caption. This book is an original analysis of a defining event. 14 maps, 75 illustrations . A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2002.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
Great book:
I was looking for a readable, reasonably detailed overview of the Holocaust and this book fit the bill perfectly. I appreciate the "voice" of the authors, which enters the writing regularly. They don't shy away from making judgments of the masses of people who acquiesced in the early stages of the Holocaust and stood by as the final solution unfolded. As I read the book, I constantly wondered how people could do these terrible things. The one thing I would have liked to see is a little more on that... more info
Holocaust: A History:
This is a superb, hard-to-put-down book. I found it to be well written, well organized, and, as a previous reviewer noted, meticulously footnoted. Consequently, I was surprised at what I found when I checked the source of one of the footnotes. On page 301 of the hardcover edition, the authors, critical of America's skepticism of Nazi atrocities in German-occupied Poland, state that "Time (Magazine) mockingly called the news from Poland the atrocity story of the week." Knowing that Time has an archive... more info
Good basic history:
This was essentially what I thought I was looking for: a chronicle of events, a historical context, what happened where. But there were two problems for me, one is the problem with history in general: that it is a generalization or informed opinion about millions of individual different histories that taken altogether don't form anything comprehensible, at least comprehensible by humans, and secondly, I still don't understand the psychology of mass murderers. The authors did a very good job: neither... more info
Holocaust: A History:
Last January I began a comprhensive study of the holocaust. I was looking for a book that would provide me with an accurate overview and a good working framework to organize my study. This book provided me with all the tools I needed.It is well researched, well organized and well written.I cannot understand why anyone would call this excellent text boring or difficult to raad unless that person had little interest in the holocaust to begin with. I highly recommend this book.
