The Holocaust: An Unfinished History

Description

A nuanced and perceptive new history by the Director of the Holocaust Research Institute. The defining event of twentieth-century Europe - the extermination of millions of Jews - has been commemorated, institutionalised and embedded in our collective consciousness. But in this nuanced and perceptive new history, Dan Stone, Professor of Modern History and Director of the Holocaust Research Institute, contends that the true dimension of the horror wrought by the Nazis is inadvertently brushed aside in our current culture of commemoration. This is due in part to practical or conceptual challenges, such as the continent-wide scale of the crime and the multiplicity of sources in many languages; and in part to an unwillingness to confront the reality that the Holocaust could not have happened without the assistance of numerous non-Nazi states and agents. Structured around four themes - trauma, collaboration, genocidal fantasy and post-war consequences - The Holocaust demonstrates the genocidal logic of much European thinking in the wake of WWI, explores how the Holocaust's effects unfolded even after the liberation of the camps in 1945, and stresses the ways in which Europeans continue, even now, to draw on a reservoir of fascist vocabulary and imagery in times of crisis. It is a deeply researched and indispensable examination of a trauma that still reverberates today.

Dan Stone is Professor of Modern History and Director of the Holocaust Research Institute at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is the author or editor of numerous articles and books, including- Histories of the Holocaust; The Liberation of the Camps- The End of the Holocaust and its Aftermath; Concentration Camps- A Very Short Introduction; Fascism, Nazism and the Holocaust- Challenging Histories; and Fate Unknown- Tracing the Missing after the Holocaust and World War II.

This vital history shatters many myths about the Nazi's genocide . . . Drawing on the latest scholarship in English and German, Stone's brisk, energetic book fizzes with ideas. Indeed, even if you think you know the subject, you'll probably find something here to make you think . . . surprising . . . provocative . . . an excellent book * Sunday Times * Relays many carefully chosen and deeply haunting stories... an engaging and accessible read that never hurries or shields the reader from its dark subject matter... outstanding -- Angus Reilly * Telegraph * A timely corrective to a shifting narrative ... erudite ... this remarkable book offers both a narrative overview and an analysis of the events, challenging many common assumptions and often returning to how this terrible history remains "unfinished"... a brisk, compelling and scholarly account of the Nazi genocide and its aftermath. But never for one moment does it let us believe that the events are now safely in the past -- Matthew Reisz * Observer * Deep insights into horror... drawing on his extensive own research and a vast range of work by historians from across the last eight decades, Stone sets about showing how our mental picture of the Holocaust is dangerously wrong.... his own passion for his subject and its importance is compelling, as is his willingness to confront both moral and historical questions... the breadth of Stone's work across borders and languages shines through... a vital and provocative book -- Chris Kissane * The Irish Times * A holocaust history for our times, passionate as well as scholarly, and written with a sharp eye to the growing threat of the radical right in the present. Stone is not afraid to question the verities that have become attached to this most catastrophic epoch of modern history, and he challenges readers to confront its scope and enormity anew -- Jane Caplan, Emeritus Professor of European History, University of Oxford A brilliant study, lucid, powerful, moving, and full of original insights. Few general studies of the Holocaust have so successfully integrated the international, indeed global, dimensions of the Nazi genocide and its aftermath -- Mark Roseman A candid, historically rooted, and timely account of the Holocaust and its many consequences . . . troubling and thought-provoking for a world in which post-war certainties are now dissolving. It deserves the widest possible readership -- Richard Overy A stunning, original, concise analysis, culling the latest research and the most observant eyewitness accounts of the time. The parallels to fascism today are extremely unsettling. Stone analyzes the latest research on the thousands of persecution sites that turned Europe into a continent of camps; he explains the mystical power of Nazi racial antisemitism and he grants the aftermath history of displacement, trauma and reckonings the fuller treatment it merits. Few scholars could write this masterful synthesis and even fewer would take on a closer examination of its darkest features and unsettling questions about the broader significance of Holocaust education today -- Wendy Lower