Why?: Explaining the Holocaust [Paperback]

Featured in the PBS documentary, The US and the Holocaust by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein Clearly written, cogently argued&courageously confronts some of the thorniest issues raised by the Shoah, making [Hayes] show[s] a sophisticated and judicious mastery of the most up-to-date historical scholarship&This timely, level-headed book is a model of public engagement. Hayes has written a valuable book for todays challenges, with perspective and sensitivity, that is, indeed, authoritative, readable and revealing. Explain? Impossible. But Hayess timely, accessible book sheds light on the horror. In certain circumstances it reminds us that humans can rationalize anything. I recommend this book for a lucid, well-crafted introduction to the history of the Holocaust. Unlike most works on the history of the Holocaust& Hayes book concentrates& on helping readers to understand why the Holocaust occurred when it did, in the manner it did and with the results it produced. It offers readers a window onto how historians go about finding answers to these questions. A fascinating, remarkably lucid, compulsively readable explanation of how the mass murder of Europes Jews came about and how it transpired in the middle of the twentieth century. Calmly argued, alert to the most recent scholarship about the Holocaust, and full of good sense, Peter Hayess new book carries an essential title asked universally: Why? Why did such a thing happen? Taking up this most difficult of challenges, his pages answer questions that many analysts dare not even ask, let alone answer. That is why this work should be required reading, both for specialists and for those who seek more recently to understand. This book is outstandingbeautifully written, with enviable clarity of argument, countless instructive details, and memorable, evocative images. On every issue around which there has been either controversy or confusionfrom the interrelationships between the Holocaust and the maslS<