The final solution : a genocide / Donald Bloxham.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bloxham, Donald.

Series:

Oxford histories

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Genocide--Germany--History--20th century.

Genocide.

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Causes.

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945).

Jews--Government policy--Germany--History--20th century.

Jews.

Genocide--Political aspects.

Genocide--Sociological aspects.

Ethnic relations.

History.

Jews--Government policy.

Germany--Ethnic relations--History--20th century.

Germany.

Europe--Ethnic relations--History--20th century.

Europe.

Physical Description:

xi, 410 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2009.

Summary:

The Holocaust is frequently depicted in isolation by its historians. Some of them believe that to place it in any kind of comparative context risks diminishing its uniqueness and even detracts from the enormity of the Nazi crime. In reality, such a restricted understanding of 'uniqueness' has pulled the Holocaust apart from history and set up barriers to a better understanding of the racial onslaught unleashed within the Third Reich and its conquered territories.

Working against the grain of much earlier writing, this innovative new history combines a detailed re-appraisal of the development of the genocide of the Jews, a full consideration of Nazi policies against other population groups, and a comparative analysis of other modern genocides.

The Holocaust is portrayed as the culmination of a much wider history of European genocide and ethnic cleansing, from the late nineteenth century onwards. Ultimately, Bloxham shows that an explanation for the Holocaust rooted exclusively in Nazism and antisemitism is inadequate when set against one that is both prepared to give due weight to the immediate circumstances of the Second World War in eastern Europe and to situate the Jewish genocide within the broader patterns of human behaviour in the late-modern world.

Contents:

I A European History of Violence 33

1 Europe on the Brink 35

2 The First World War Era 70

3 Ethnopolitics, Geopolitics, and the Return to War 92

II Germany and the Final Solution 131

4 Nazism and Germany 133

5 Genocide in Germany's Eastern Empire 170

6 The Patterns and Limits of the European Genocide 212

III Perpetrators and their Environment 259

7 Why Did They Kill? 261

IV Civilization and the Holocaust 301

8 Locating Genocide in the Human Past 303.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780199550340

0199550344

9780199550333

0199550336

OCLC:

403854692

Publisher Number:

99934864017