Denying History

by Shermer, Michael; Grobman, Alex; Hertzberg, Arthur

• ISBN13: 9780520216129
• ISBN10: 0520216121
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-06-01
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr

Summary

Denying History takes a bold and in-depth look at those who say the Holocaust never happened and explores the motivations behind such claims. While most commentators have dismissed the Holocaust deniers as antisemitic neo-Nazi thugs who do not deserve a response, historians Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman have immersed themselves in the minds and culture of these Holocaust "revisionists." They have conducted personal interviews with the deniers, read their literature, monitored their Web sites, attended their conferences, engaged them in debate, and even traveled around Europe to conduct research at the Nazi extermination camps. Uncovering a complex social movement, the authors go much deeper than ever before in not only trying to understand the motives of the Holocaust deniers, but also refuting their points one by one. In the process, they show how we can be certain that the Holocaust happened and, for that matter, how we can confirm any historical event.

Author Biography

Michael Shermer is the founder and publisher of Skeptic magazine, Director of the Skeptics Society, Adjunct Professor of the History of science at Occidental College, and host of the Skeptics Lecture Series at Caltech. He is also the host of a national TV show called Exploring the Unknown (Fox Network) and the author of Why People Believe Weird Things (1997), and How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science (1999) Alex Grobman is the founding editor-in-chief of the Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual, as well as the editor of In Defense of the Survivors: The Letters and Documents of Oscar A. Mintzer, AJDC Legal Advisor, Germany, 1945-46 (1999) and coeditor, with Rabbi Daniel Landes and Sybil Milton, of Genocide: Critical Issues of the Holocaust (1983)

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	ix
Foreword	xi
Arthur Hertzberg
A Note on Terminology: Why Holocaust ``Revisionists'' Are Really Deniers	xv
Acknowledgments	xvii
Introduction: Who Speaks for the Past? History and Pseudohistory	1	(8)
PART I. FREE SPEECH AND HISTORY
Giving the Devil His Due: The Free Speech Issue	9	(10)
The Noble Dream: How We Know Anything Happened in History	19	(20)
PART II. INSIDE THE DENIAL MOVEMENT
Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened? An Inside Look at the Personalities and Organizations	39	(36)
Why They Say the Holocaust Never Happened: The Ideological Agenda	75	(24)
How Deniers Distort History: Flaws, Fallacies, and Failings in the Deniers' Arguments	99	(24)
PART III. ARGUMENTS AND REFUTATIONS
The Crooked Timber of Auschwitz: How Concentration Camps Became Extermination Camps	123	(50)
``For God's Sake---Terrible'': The Scope and Scale of the Holocaust	173	(26)
The Evil of Banality: The Protocols of National Socialism	199	(32)
PART IV. TRUTH AND HISTORY
The Rape of History: Denial, Revision, and the Search for a True and Meaningful Past	231	(26)
Epilogue: Libel, Denial, and the Holocaust Trial	257	(4)
Notes	261	(26)
Bibliography	287	(18)
Index	305