The Final Solution: A Genocide

by Donald Bloxham

Overview

The Holocaust is frequently depicted in isolation by its historians. Some of them believe that to place it in any kind of comparative context risks diminishing its uniqueness and even detracts from the enormity of the Nazi crime. In reality, such a restricted understanding of "uniqueness" has pulled the Holocaust apart from history and set up barriers to a better understanding of the racial onslaught unleashed within the Third Reich and its conquered territories.

Working against the grain of much earlier writing, this innovative new history combines a detailed re-appraisal of the development of the genocide of the Jews, a full consideration of Nazi policies against other population groups, and a comparative analysis of other modern genocides.

The Holocaust is portrayed as the culmination of a much wider history of European genocide and ethnic cleansing, from the late nineteenth century onwards. Ultimately, Bloxham shows that an explanation for the Holocaust rooted exclusively in Nazism and anti-Semitism is inadequate when set against one that is both prepared to give due weight to the immediate circumstances of the Second World War in eastern Europe and to situate the Jewish genocide within the broader patterns of human behavior in the late-modern world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199550340
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	11/02/2009
Series:	Oxford Histories
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	8.30(w) x 5.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Donald Bloxham is Professor of Modern History at Edinburgh University. An expert in the history of genocide and the punishment of genocide, he is the author of Genocide on Trial (2001) and The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians (2005), both also published by Oxford University Press. He is also co-editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies (2009) and the monograph series Zones of Violence.

Table of Contents

Preface
Glossary and Abbreviations
Introduction

Part I: A EUROPEAN HISTORY OF VIOLENCE
Chapter 1 Europe on the Brink
Chapter 2 The First World War Era
Chapter 3 Ethnopolitics, Geopolitics, and the Return to War

Part II: NAZISM AND THE FINAL SOLUTION
Chapter 4 Nazism and Germany
Chapter 5 Genocide in Germany's Eastern Empire
Chapter 6 The Patterns and Limits of the European Genocide

Part III: PERPETRATORS AND THEIR ENVIRONMENT
Chapter 7 Why did they kill?

Part IV: CIVILIZATION AND THE HOLOCAUST
Chapter 8 Locating Genocide in the Human Past

Bibliography of Sources Cited
Index
Preface
Glossary and Abbreviations
Introduction
Part I: A EUROPEAN HISTORY OF VIOLENCE
1. Europe on the Brink
2. The First World War Era
3. Ethnopolitics, Geopolitics, and the Return to War
Part II: NAZISM AND THE FINAL SOLUTION
4. Nazism and Germany
5. Genocide in Germany's Eastern Empire
6. The Patterns and Limits of the European Genocide
Part III: PERPETRATORS AND THEIR ENVIRONMENT
7. Why did they kill?
Part IV: CIVILIZATION AND THE HOLOCAUST
8. Locating Genocide in the Human Past
Bibliography of Sources Cited
Index

Editorial Reviews

"[A] provocative and essential study of the Nazi genocide."—Jewish Book World

"Genuinely illuminating..."—Mark Mazower, Times Literary Supplement

"A challenging book with far-reaching implications for our understanding of the Holocaust and its place in the history of the twentieth century."—English Historical Review

"Sophisticated..."—History Today

From the Publisher