The Origins Of Nazi Violence

Description

Despite the range of detailed histories on the Holocaust, there have been few attempts to trace the ideological and historical background of what is, for many, the defining event of the 20th century. In this successor to Hannah Arendt's "The Origins of Totalitarianism", Traverso rejects the belief that the Holocaust was an historical aberration, completely outside the trajectory of Western civilization. Looking at innovations such as the guillotine and the machine gun, and institutions such as assembly lines and prisons, the author sets out to demonstrate that the Holocaust was the culmination of Western liberal thought.

Enzo Traverso is professor of political science at the Jules Verne University of Amiens and the author of numerous books on history and totalitarianism.

"An important contribution to the debate on the origins of the Nazi crimes against humanity." - Etudes (Paris) "[Enzo Traverso] offers us an absolutely original perspective.... [He] isolates, with rare force, the mortifying core of Nazi anti-semitism." - Lire "Returns ideas to their proper place, at a time when we must reconstruct the fundamental lines of a new project of liberation.... Particularly timely." - Rouge