Holocaust (Pelican Books)

'This vital history shatters many myths about the Nazi genocide . . . . surprising . . . provocative . . . fizzes with ideas. Even if you think you know the subject, you'll probably find something here to make you think' Sunday Times
'Erudite...remarkable' The Observer
'Outstanding' The Telegraph

An authoritative, revelatory new history of the Holocaust, from one of the leading scholars of his generation

The Holocaust is much-discussed, much-memorialized and much-portrayed. But there are major aspects of its history that have been overlooked.

Spanning the entirety of the Holocaust and across the world, this sweeping history deepens our understanding. Dan Stone reveals how the idea of 'industrial murder' is incomplete: many were killed where they lived in the most brutal of ways. He outlines the depth of collaboration across Europe, arguing persuasively that we need to stop thinking of the Holocaust as an exclusively German project. He also considers the nature of trauma the Holocaust engendered, and why Jewish suffering has yet to be fully reckoned with. And he makes clear that the kernel to understanding Nazi thinking and action is genocidal ideology, providing a deep analysis of its origins.

Drawing on decades of research, The Holocaust: An Unfinished History upends much of what we think we know about the Holocaust. Stone draws on Nazi documents, but also on diaries, post-war testimonies and even fiction, urging that, in our age of increasing nationalism and xenophobia, we must understand the true history of the Holocaust.

Reviews

Instead of presenting Holocaust history as a tidy affair wrapped in a bow with neat moral messages, Stone proposes that we examine its unfinishedness, its unknowability, and its very incompleteness… confronts uncomfortable truths