Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory (Paperback)

by Deborah E. Lipstadt (Author) "The producer was incredulous..." (more)
Key Phrases: six million swindle, other deniers, homicidal gas chambers, United States, Nazi Germany, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews
A forceful analysis of attempts to deny the Nazi Holocaust. Lipstadt (Religion/Emory University; Beyond Belief, 1985--not reviewed) traces the history of Holocaust revisionism and contends that it can no longer be ignored, showing how Holocaust-deniers, once dismissed as a lunatic fringe, have been growing in numbers and influence during the past 20 years. Citing groups like the Institute for Historical Review, publications like The Spotlight, politicians like David Duke, and academicians like Leonard Jeffries, Lipstadt presents numerous examples of attempts to prove that the extermination of six million Jews is a hoax; that only a few thousand Jews died in the camps from disease; that the Allied bombings of German cities were worse than any Nazi offense; and that the ``true victims'' of WW II were the German people. These distortions of recorded history, argues the author, threaten to undermine our Western rationalist tradition and to legitimize the politicization of history. To Lipstadt, the common thread among Holocaust deniers is a ``purely anti-Semitic diatribe'' portraying Jews as victimizers. Self-declared scholars like Arthur R. Butz (whose credentials are in electronics) claim that Jews used the world's sympathy after the war to ``displace'' another people, establish the nation of Israel, and ``steal'' billions in reparations from their German and Western ``cash cows.'' Lipstadt argues vehemently against giving revisionists a forum in the name of free speech or freedom of the press, and she details the efforts of California revisionist Bradley Smith, who pushed a ``Holocaust was a hoax'' campaign in college newspapers throughout the US. Lipstadt contends that ``the responses to Holocaust denial by both students and faculty graphically demonstrate the susceptibility of an educated and privileged segment to the kind of reasoning that creates a hospitable climate for the rewriting of history.'' An important, well-documented study that deserves attention. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description
In this first full-scale history of Holocaust denial, Lipstadt shows how, despite tens of thousands of living witnesses and vast amounts of documentary evidence, this irrational idea has not only continued to gain adherents but has become an internationally organized movement.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Plume (July 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0452272742
• ISBN-13: 978-0452272743
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #55,888 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Book, but ignores growing assault in Arabic media, June 10, 2001

By A Customer

This is a good book on a subject whose importance is clear and evident. Professor Lipstadt targets the deniers and presents superb arguments that they are motivated by hate and bigotry. The author, a confident character, faced the trial against her courageously and won.

Lipstadt's outlook, however, is Euro-centered: She only studied holocaust denial in Europe and North America. Characters like Irving and Garaudy are very popular in the Arab world, especially in Egypt. Moreover, Prof Lipstadt ignored Arab individuals who deny the holocaust in the Arabic media. These individuals are considered intellectuals in Arab society, and their message of hate is very popular, primarily because almost all writing about the Holocaust by scholars like Elie WIesel, Walter Laqueur, and Martin Gilbert, is censored, and certainly never ever translated into Arabic. In fact, after the Irving trial, Al Ahram, the most prestigious daily in Egypt and the Arab world, published an interview with David Irving. The interviewers presented David Irving as a victim attacked by sharks, with Professor Lipstadt, whose picture was shown, as one of the sharks. Al Jazeera television network regularly hosts Arab and other holocaust deniers.

Though she is confident, Professor Lipstadt does not seem to be aware that she is being abused in prestigious papers such as Al Ahram and AlJazeera television station. She needs to realize that this is a grave matter, and she cannot afford to be so Euro-centered. She should add a chapter on Arab Holocaust deniers and republish the book. Not only that, she should arrange to have her book translated into Arabic, so that the 300 Million Arabs get a chance to read the truth.

Her study of Arab journalists and scholars should also include another phenomenon related to the Holocaust that is almost exclusively Arab: Applauding the Final Solution. Al Akhbar's Ahmed Ragab, probably the most popular columnist in Egypt, very recently thanked Adofph Hitler for embarking on the final solution and killing nearly six million Jews, but chastised him for not doing a complete job. Applauding the Final Solution coexists very comfortably with denying the Holocaust in Arab milieus, as absurd as this may sound.

13 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Flawed, but important, March 5, 2001

By A Customer

Deborah Lipstadt clearly has a high opinion of her own cleverness and the "I'm right and anyone who disagrees with me is wrong" attitude she adopts, particularly at the start of the book, is irritating. To compound this, the editing is woefully sloppy, resulting in, among other things, far more misprints than should be the case in works at this level.

These are serious flaws, but once the reader gets past them, the naivety, wilful blindness and downright cruelty of those who would rehabilitate the Nazis are shown in frightening relief and detail. Books like this should keep us all on our guard. Thank goodness she won that British libel case. Recommended, but with reservations.

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting On Many Levels, August 8, 2008

By	The Orange Duke "orangeduke" (Cupertino, Ca United States) - See all my reviews

This is the book that set off the famous libel suit by infamous neo Nazi David Irving which became the subject of a couple of other books. It also purports to be the first examination of holocaust denial and its tactics. As such it is quite interesting. I fond the section on the attempt to place adds in college newspapers particularly interesting. Lipstadt's argument, that holocaust denial should not be given any academic respectability seems at first glance to undermine the idea of keeping from history from being politicized by enforcing an orthodoxy saying the holocaust happened. But of course the truth is the holocaust did happen, and no one would lend credence to a `historian' that claimed that the Second World War never happened. Facts are facts. Worse, the deniers do have an avowed political purpose, and one that advocates the very thing they deny. There are, indeed, some thoughts that are beyond the pale and should not be tolerated in a civil society, lest we lose sight of objective reality and begin to believe that up is down.

The history and phases of the denial movement is fascinating and various players are all well drawn and the book is a rich source of information about the deniers. Highly recommended.