"Of all the "big lies" that are circulating in our increasingly credulous times, none is larger or more insidious than denial of the Holocaust. Undeterred by attempts to silence her, the distinguished Italian political philosopher Donatella Di Cesare uncovers its sources, traces its global dissemination, and warns against the expanding role it plays in fuelling antisemitic violence and undermining democracy."Martin Jay, University of California"With analytical precision and rhetorical brilliance, Donatella Di Cesare simultaneously constructs "denialism" as an extraordinarily potent ideological-cum-political category and utterly destroys its moral and empirical validity. This intellectual tour de force provides a welcome antidote to the dark conspiracies that are polarizing our time."Jeffrey Alexander, Yale University
PrefaceThe New DenialismIf Auschwitz Is Nothing1. Annihilation and Denialism2. The Desecrators of Ashes3. In Hitler's Shadow4. "Night and Fog". Erasure in Language5. In the Shallows of Denial6. A Matter of Opinion?7. Technical Expertise and Gas. On the Idolatry of the Real8. The Face of the Asphyxiated. On the "Sonderkommando"9. Even the Dead Will not be Safe"". Memory and Remembrance10. The Future of a Negation11. The Singularity of the Extermination12. Saying AuschwitzAntisemitism in the Twenty-First CenturyBibliographyNotes
Donatella Di Cesare is Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the Sapienza University of Rome.