The Holocaust (Brief Histories)

Genocide is not new and, as events in the Balkans and in central Africa showed at the close of the twentieth century, it is not something that can be comfortingly regarded as a feature of a more barbarous past. Why, then, if it can be seen as a terrible but recurring feature of human existence, has the Nazi genocide - the Holocaust - stood apart, refusing to be historicized? In this fresh new introduction to the subject, Frank McDonough examines the main features of the racial war-within-a-war; outlining the main controversies and looking also at the way the subject itself has been popularized and institutionalized. He gives proper weight to the central Jewish dimension but also looks at the other victims of Nazi atrocities.