The Final Solution: A Genocide(Oxford Histories)

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.

Table of Contents:
Preface Glossary and Abbreviations Introduction Part I: A EUROPEAN HISTORY OF VIOLENCE 1: Europe on the Brink 2: The First World War Era 3: Ethnopolitics, Geopolitics, and the Return to War Part II: NAZISM AND THE FINAL SOLUTION 4: Nazism and Germany 5: Genocide in Germany's Eastern Empire 6: The Patterns and Limits of the European Genocide Part III: PERPETRATORS AND THEIR ENVIRONMENT 7: Why did they kill? Part IV: CIVILIZATION AND THE HOLOCAUST 8: Locating Genocide in the Human Past Bibliography of Sources Cited Index

About the Author :
Donald Bloxham is Professor of Modern History at Edinburgh University. An expert in the history of genocide and the punishment of genocide, he is the author of Genocide on Trial (2001) and The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians (2005), both also published by Oxford University Press. He is also co-editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies (2009) and the monograph series Zones of Violence.

Review :
An ambitious book that forces a dramtic shift in our perceptions of the Holocaust...a dense, thoughtful book that challenges the reader on virtually every page. This is a challenging book with far-reaching implications for our understanding of the Holocaust and its place in the history of the twentieth century. Genuinely illuminating A challenging book with far-reaching implications for our understanding of the Holocaust and its place in the history of the twentieth century. ...sophisticated... [A] provocative and essential study of the Nazi genocide. Bloxham does a great job [of] relating the mass murder of people with disabilities, Soviet POWs, Roma, Polish elites, and Serbs to that of Jews... Eloquently written and well argued, The Final Solution: A Genocide offers fresh perspective on the Nazi genocide whose extreme nature had unduly stalled the historical analysis. A masterful attempt at contextualization, Bloxham's book should be on a list of required reading for any university course on genocide/mass violence.