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A NATION ON TRIAL: THE GOLDHAGEN THESIS AND HISTORICAL TRUTH
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No recent work of history has generated as much interest as Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners. Purporting to solve the mystery of the Holocaust, Goldhagen maintains that ordinary Germans were driven by fanatical anti-semitism to murder Jews. An immediate national best-seller, the book went on to create an international sensation.
Now, in A Nation on Trial , two leading critics challenge Goldhagen's findings. With devastating cumulative effect, Norman G. Finkelstein meticulously documents Goldhagen's misrepresentations of secondary literature and the internal contradictions of his argument. In a complimentary essay, Ruth Bettina Birn juxtaposes Goldhagen's text against the German archives he consulted. The foremost international authority on these archives, Birn argues that Goldhagen systematically misrepresented their contents. First published in the New Left Review and the Cambridge Historical Journal , these two landmark essays have already provoked intense debate both here and abroad.
The authoritative statement on the Goldhagen phenomenon, A Nation on Trial is also a cautionary tale on the corruption of scholarship by ideological zealotry. |
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ENDORSEMENTS
"Among the dozens of reviewers of Hitler's Willing Executioners, Ruth Bettina Birn and Norman Finkelstein stand out for the seriousness and thoroughness with which they have undertaken their task. Even if I do not embrace every aspect of Finkelstein's conclusions concerning the politicization of the Holocaust historiography, I am grateful for these writers' courageous, conscientious and labour-intensive efforts."
-- Christopher R. Browning
Author of Ordinary Men: Reserve Police
Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland
"No serious student of history can afford to ignore these well-reasoned and withering reflections on the perils of pseudo-scholarship."
-- Arno Mayer
Author of Why did the Heavens Not Darken?
"All readers of Goldhagen's controversial book should take note of these much-needed studies, which, in line with serious historians, convincingly and authoritatively dismantle its arguments."
-- Eric Hobsbawm
Author of The Age of Extremes
"Finkelstein and Birn provide a devastating critique of Daniel Goldhagen's simplistic and misleading interpretation of the Holocaust. Their contribution to the debate is, in my view, indispensable."
-- Ian Kershaw
Author of Hitler
"Highly recommended to the many readers of Goldhagen's controversial book, especially those who were mesmerized by its hypotheses. Fortunately, in an open society all scholarship is subject to public scrutiny, and the advance of historical knowledge cannot do without rigorous criticism of the kind of provided in this important and courageous collection."
-- Volker R. Berghahn
J.P. Birkelund Professor of European History, Brown University
04.09.1998 "Adam Shatz - Slate's Willing Executioner: Norman Finkelstein's Response To Adam Shatz's Slate Book Review," April 9, 1998
04.17.1997 "Anti-Semitism, Fascism & the Holocaust: A critical review of Daniel Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners" by David North
04.01.1998 "Holocaust Scholarship, Zionism and Political Orthodoxy" by Mordecai Briemberg, Outlook
05.10.1998 LA Times Book Review: "How Could They?"
08.18.1998 "HOLOCAUST BOOK SPARKS FRESH CONTROVERSY: From "Mein Kampf" to Auschwitz" by Dominique Vida
05.15.1998 Tom Segev in Ha'aretz
04.09.1998 Finkelstein's Response to Goldhagen. Comments on Daniel Goldhagen's "The New Discourse of Avoidance"
08.03.1998 Jerusalem Report: "The Goldhagen Wars"
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What we can do:
On Gaza, West Bank, East Jerusalem & the Occupation:
On the Lobby & "the New anti-Semitism"
On Hezbollah & Hamas:
- The Guardian: Hamas acted on a very real fear of a US-sponsored coup. (06.22.2007)
- Haaretz: Haniyeh: Hamas willing to accept Palestinian state with 1967 borders. (11.09.2008)
- Henry Siegman, International Herald Tribune: Bring in Hamas. (03.04.2008)
- The Washington Post: No Peace Without Hamas. (04.17.2008)
- Al Jazeera English: Talk to Jazeera - Khaled Meshaal. (03.05.2008)
- International Herald Tribune: Bring in Hamas. (03.04.2008)
- "the Hezbollah model"
and
"There is this claim that the obstacle [to peace] is that Hamas won't recognize Israel..." (09.30.2006)
"Israel always depended on the fact that its adversaries were stupid, incompetent... and, in fact, they were right... That when they were dealing with a Nasser, he was a blowhard; a Saddam Hussein,
he was a windbag; when they were dealing with Yasser Arafat, he was a hot air ballon.
They were nothing of any substance... [inaudible]... That was Israel's ace in the hole. Now comes along an Arab leader who says we have to use "reason."
It's a very remarkable thing to read. We have to use "reason."
We have to think, plan, organize."
- Hamas: A reasonable statement. (Los Angeles Times, 07.10.2007)
- The Guardian: Hamas condemns the Holocaust. (05.12.2008)
- Salon.com: The "hiding among civilians" myth. (07.28.2006)
- AIPAC v. Norman Finkelstein: A Debate on Israel's Assault on Gaza. (06.29.2006)
- Foreign Policy: Habitat for Hezbollah. (08.2006)
- The Irish Times: Hizbullah rockets cannot be fired from buildings. (07.31.2006)
Finkelstein on Israel:
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
Video: On the place of civility
in academic life (10.18.2007)
Finkelstein's talk at the academic freedom conference
Tenure Denial Letters
(June - November, 2007)
On How Actual Survivors Were Cheated by
Jewish Organizations:
- Haaretz: "The Claims Conference intentionally defrauded Holocaust survivors." (09.25.2008)
- Ynet: Where did the Shoah money go? (12.11.2006)
'First Class flights around the world, accommodation at deluxe hotels, dining at fancy restaurants and a series of credit cards, this is how the Claims Conference, which deals with restitution of stolen Jewish property from the Holocaust, operates.'
- Haaretz: Survivors' protest makes foreign journalists gasp, security vanish (08.06.2007)
"I want the Germans to know where the money they gave Israel went," he said angrily. "I want the Germans to know that Israel took the money we should have received. I want them to answer one question: Where did our money go?"
- AP: Holocaust survivors blast $20 stipend (07.31.2007)
'Survivors have long claimed that European countries treat them far better than Israel, where many elderly survivors live in poverty.'
- Jewish Week: Holocaust Cash Went To Shadowy Pal Of Ousted WJC Leader (05.04.2007)
'Israeli finance minister, now being probed for corruption, urged death camp tour group to hire little-known N.Y. consultant; Singer friend Curtis Hoxter can't explain what he did for $709,000.'
- Jewish Week: "Survivors Balking At Lawyer's Fee" (03.02.2006)
- Shocking revelation in the London Jewish Chronicle. ("The man on the left earns $437,811 a year handling Shoah claims. So why are so many survivors pleading poverty?"; 05.30.2006)
- Survivors Protest Holocaust Industry Shakedown (08.29.2000)
- Finkelstein: Will The Holocaust Industry Incite Anti-Semitism? (08.11.2000)
- Finkelstein: Lessons of Holocaust Compensation (2001)
Finkelstein on Jimmy Carter:
Israeli civil libertarian's introduction to German edition of Beyond Chutzpah. (03.27.2006)
Communication for Middle East Journal. (02.19.2006)
Alleged Errors in Beyond Chutzpah. (2005)
MEMRI NAZIS (again) (10.23.2006)
New evidence of old lies (2005)
Under the heading DIABOLICAL PLOTS, I stated in Beyond Chutzpah...
Articles and Reviews Related to The Holocaust Industry
Preface to German edition of The Rise and Fall of Palestine
Postscript to German edition of The Rise and Fall of Palestine
The Dershowitz File:
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