The Holocaust: A Concise History / Edition 2

by Doris L. Bergen

Overview

In examining one of the defining events of the twentieth century, Doris Bergen situates the Holocaust in its historical, political, social, cultural, and military contexts. Unlike many other treatments of the Holocaust, this history traces not only the persecution of the Jews, but also other segments of society victimized by the Nazis: Gypsies, homosexuals, Poles, Soviet POWs, the disabled, and other groups deemed undesirable. With clear and eloquent prose, Bergen explores the two interconnected goals that drove the Nazi German program of conquest and genocide—purification of the so-called Aryan race and expansion of its living space—and discusses how these goals affected the course of World War II. Including illustrations and firsthand accounts from perpetrators, victims, and eyewitnesses, the book is immediate, human, and eminently readable.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780742557147
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	09/16/2009
Series:	Critical Issues in World and International History
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	296
Sales rank:	581,241
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Doris L. Bergen is Chancellor Rose and Ray Wolfe Professor of Holocaust Studies at the University of Toronto.

Table of Contents

Preface: War and Genocide: Race and Space
Chapter 1: Preconditions: Antisemitism, Racism, and Common Prejudices in Early-Twentieth-Century Europe
Chapter 2: Leadership and Will: Adolf Hitler, the National Socialist German Workers' Party, and Nazi Ideology
Chapter 3: From Revolution to Routine: Nazi Germany, 1933–1939
Chapter 4: Open Aggression: In Search of War, 1938–1939
Chapter 5: Experiments in Brutality, 1939–1940: War against Poland and the So-Called Euthanasia Program
Chapter 6: Expansion and Systematization: Exporting War and Terror, 1940–1941
Chapter 7: The Peak Years of Killing: 1942 and 1943
Chapter 8: Death Throes and Killing Frenzies, 1944–1945
Conclusion: The Legacies of Atrocity
Sources and Suggestions for Further Reading

Editorial Reviews

Doris L. Bergen, professor of Holocaust Studies at the University of Toronto, has written perhaps the best concise history of the Holocaust published to date. She provides an accessible and comprehensive introduction to this complex subject. Writing with clarity and sensitivity, and based on the latest research, she places the Holocaust in its historical, cultural, social, and military contexts. The narrative is powerful and engaging, and the analysis is balanced and compelling. In this compact volume, fully illustrated with photographs and maps, Bergen covers all the major issues surrounding the Holocaust. She discusses not only the persecution of the Jews, but other groups victimized by the Nazis: Gypsies, the disabled, Poles, Soviet POWs, homosexuals, and political opponents of the regime. She also provides firsthand accounts from perpetrators, victims, and eyewitnesses thus adding the human dimension of the tragedy that is so often left out of other textbook treatments of the subject. The book is very readable, compelling and informative and highly recommended to expert and novice alike.

Jewish Book World

A striking introduction to the complexity of Holocaust history—precisely because despite being a very short book it does not in any way attempt to evade the complexity and context for Nazi violence against Jews.. .. It is an impressive introduction to the Holocaust which will certainly serve its readers well.

Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal Of Jewish Studies

A meticulous, sensitive account of the Nazi race wars that combines a powerful narrative and explanatory drive at the same time as it illuminates individual lives and fates with searing precision. While giving full weight to the antisemitic core of Nazi racism, Bergen also shows why it claimed so many other groups of victims, and pursues it to its appalling climax in the wars of imperialist conquest and exploitation launched in 1939. This is a distinctive and remarkable achievement, as assured as it is readable.

Jane Caplan

A striking introduction to the complexity of Holocaust history—precisely because despite being a very short book it does not in any way attempt to evade the complexity and context for Nazi violence against Jews. . . . It is an impressive introduction to the Holocaust which will certainly serve its readers well.

Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal Of Jewish Studies