The Holocaust

Reviews / Votes

"A sophisticated and comprehensive history that expertly details the European-wide origins, events, and legacies of antisemitism and Nazi genocide. A first-rate work that skillfully interweaves institutional dynamics with the personal experiences of those persecuted during Hitler's Reich."

Edward B. Westermann, Texas A&M University - San Antonio, USA

"With The Holocaust: Europe, the World, and the Jews, 1918-1945, Norman Goda has written a work comparable to the finest works on the subject. Goda's prose is clear and powerfully understated. His mastery of the massive published scholarship in English, German and French, his sensitive use of diaries and memories, astute grasp of high-level government policies, the intersection of national and international politics, and attention to the history of the Holocaust in Germany, Poland, France, Hungary, the Soviet Union, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Denmark, Serbia, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, North Africa and the Middle East offers the reader an unparalleled synthesis of the scholarship of the past seventy years. In so doing, The Holocaust is fully comparable in quality to other impressive syntheses of recent decades about Nazi Germany and the Holocaust offered by Doris Bergen, David Cesarani, Richard Evans, Saul Friedlander, Ian Kershaw, Peter Longerich, and Leni Yahil. Its 400 pages are full of trenchant insights into famous debates, judicious selections of powerful anecdotes, illustrative images and maps, as well as fresh archival findings. This extraordinary work should appear on syllabi of college courses, both undergraduate and graduate that address not only the Holocaust, but also on the history of antisemitism, Nazi Germany, World War II, and genocide. It is a book his fellow scholars will appreciate. Multi-volume works are in progress but for a single volume of substantial size, this work is ideal for course adoptions and a general audience. With generosity and clarity, Goda presents the results of specialists to a general audience. Hopefully, major newspaper book review editors will bring this remarkable work to the attention of their readers. Goda's The Holocaust is simultaneously a brilliant work of historical synthesis, stunning originality, scholarly responsibility, and moral clarity."

Jeffrey Herf, University of Maryland, USA

"Norman Goda brings his extensive knowledge, the newest research, and historical debates to bear in this indispensable volume. Offering a broad overview of the Holocaust, he provides specifics that bring us closer to perpetrators and enablers as well as to the Jewish victims who suffered the atrocities of these years. A wide spectrum of readers will surely benefit from the clarity of argument and detail in this volume."

Marion Kaplan, New York University, USA