Ethics and Extermination: Reflections on Nazi Genocide / Edition 1

by Michael Burleigh

Overview

This series of essays by one of today's most original and prolific scholars on German racial policy concern three interrelated aspects of Nazi Germany: relations with "the East," "euthanasia," and extermination. The collection includes important and wholly new contributions to the German-Soviet war and other national tragedies; to the controversial question of whether the Nazi analogy has any relevance to contemporary ethical discussions; and to the contemporary historiography, including works of fiction and literary criticism, of the Holocaust.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521588164
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	09/11/1997
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	274
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.63(d)

Table of Contents

Introduction; Part I. The Germans and the East: 1. The knights, nationalists and the historians; 2. Albert Brackmann, Ostforscher: the years of retirement; 3. 'See you again in Siberia': the German-Soviet war and other tragedies; Part II. 'Euthanasia': 4. Psychiatry, German society and the Nazi 'euthanasia' programme; 5. The churches, eugenics and the Nazi 'euthanasia' programme; 6. The Nazi analogy and contemporary debates on euthanasia; Part III. Extermination: 7. The racial state revisited; 8. A 'political economy of the Final Solution'? Reflections on modernity, historians and the Holocaust; 9. The realm of shadows: recent writing on the Holocaust.

Editorial Reviews

"...Burleigh's work stands out for three reasons. First, he never loses sight of the fact that all those involved—perpetrators, victims and those...who ended up being both—were human beings. His use of the evidence that illuminates individual experience is consistently superb and often painfully memorable. Second, he writes without jargon in an unaffected and often arresting style. And third, he does not strike facile moralistic poses. All these qualities are abundantly in evidence in his powerful chapter on the Nazi-Soviet war: a tour de force which evokes the horror of that conflict more vividly than anything I have ever read." Niall Ferguson, The Sunday Telegraph

"...Burleigh's essays are solidly researched and sound in judgment. ...undergraduate and graduate students may find some of the essays helpful." Richard Weikart, German Studies Review

"These essays are distinguished and distinctive contributions...they reveal much about the personal reference points of a leading authority on Nazi Germany, while further consolidating his scholarly achievement." Paul Weindling, Canadian Journal of History

"...it would be a mistake to ignore Ethics and Extermination, a powerful and informative volume... This well-written...volume provides much historical detail, new information, and clarifying theoretical argument regarding the nature and conditions of the Holocaust..." Paul Hollander, Partisan Review

This well-written and sometimes justifiably polemical volume provides much historical detail, new information, and clarifying theoretical argument regarding the nature and conditions of the Holocaust." Partisan Review

From the Publisher