This book examines the large and previously-neglected body of literature on Nazism that was produced in the years 1933-1939. Shifting attention away from high politics or appeasement, it reveals that a remarkably wide range of responses was available to the reading public. From sophisticated philosophical analyzes of Nazism to pro-Nazi apologies, the book shows how Nazism informed debates over culture and politics in Britain, and how before the war and the Holocaust made Nazism anathema it was often discussed in ways that seem surprising today.

This collection of essays by leading scholars in their fields provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date survey of Holocaust historiography available. Covering both long-established historical disputes as well as research questions and methodologies that have developed in the last decade's massive growth in Holocaust Studies, this collection will be of enormous benefit to students and scholars alike.

This collection of essays by leading scholars in their fields provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date survey of Holocaust historiography available. Covering both long-established historical disputes as well as research questions and methodologies that have developed in the last decade's massive growth in Holocaust Studies, this collection will be of enormous benefit to students and scholars alike.

Constructing the Holocaust examines the development of Holocaust historiography in the light of recent critical philosophy of history. It argues that the Holocaust provides both the occasion for, and the ultimate test of, new ways of giving meaning to the past. It also shows that examining our representations of the past is as important as archival research for understanding history. The problem under investigation is the paradox of using tools and methods inherited from western civilization in order to write about a set of events - the Holocaust - that impugn fundamental tenets of that very...

The book's main theme is the interpretation of the Holocaust and genocide in historiography, philosophy and the contemporary culture of commemoration. Running through the essays is an attempt to understand the Holocaust's relationship to 'modernity'; the need to find ways of understanding genocide through apparently 'non-rational' forms of explanation (especially derived from anthropology); and the desirability of relating the Holocaust to other instances of genocide. The book investigates the ways in which individual thinkers (Malinowski, Arendt, Bataille, Perec, Ricoeur) can help us...

The book's main theme is the interpretation of the Holocaust and genocide in historiography, philosophy and the contemporary culture of commemoration. Running through the essays is an attempt to understand the Holocaust's relationship to 'modernity'; the need to find ways of understanding genocide through apparently 'non-rational' forms of explanation (especially derived from anthropology); and the desirability of relating the Holocaust to other instances of genocide. The book investigates the ways in which individual thinkers (Malinowski, Arendt, Bataille, Perec, Ricoeur) can help us...

Before the First World War there existed an intellectual turmoil in Britain as great as any in Germany, France or Russia, as the debates over Nietzsche and eugenics in the context of early modernism reveal. With the rise of fascism after 1918, these debates became more ideologically driven, with science and vitalist philosophy being hailed in some quarters as saviours from bourgeois decadence, vituperated in others as heralding the onset of barbarism. Breeding Superman looks at several of the leading Nietzscheans and eugenicists, and challenges the long-cherished belief that British...

Before the First World War there existed an intellectual turmoil in Britain as great as any in Germany, France or Russia, as the debates over Nietzsche and eugenics in the context of early modernism reveal. With the rise of fascism after 1918, these debates became more ideologically driven, with science and vitalist philosophy being hailed in some quarters as saviours from bourgeois decadence, vituperated in others as heralding the onset of barbarism. Breeding Superman looks at several of the leading Nietzscheans and eugenicists, and challenges the long-cherished belief that British...