Identity Politics in the Age of Genocide: The Holocaust and Historical Representation

by MacDonald; David B

• ISBN13: 9780415430616
• ISBN10: 0415430615
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-11-19
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

P In an era of globalization and identity politics, this book explores how Holocaust imagery and vocabulary have been appropriated and applied to other genocides. /P P The author examines how the Holocaust has impacted on other ethnic and social groups, asking whether the Holocaust as a symbol is a useful or destructive means of reading non-Jewish history. This volume: /P UL P LI explains the rise of the Holocaust as a gradual process, charting how its importance as a symbol has evolved, providing a theoretical framework to understand how and why non-Jewish groups choose to invoke 'holocausts' to apply to other events /LI P /P P LI explores the Holocaust in relation to colonialism and indigenous genocide, with case studies on America, Australia and New Zealand /LI P /P P LI analyzes the Holocaust in relation to war and genocide, with case studies on the Armenian genocide, the Rape of Nanking, Serbia and the Rwandan genocide /LI P /P P LI examines how the Holocaust has been used topromote animal rights. /LI P /P /UL P Demonstrating both the opportunities and pitfalls the Holocaust provides to non-Jewish groups who seek to represent their collective histories, this book fills a much needed gap on the use of the Holocaust in contemporary identity politics and will be of interest to students and researchers of politics, the Holocaust and genocide. /P

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction: the Holocaust and identity politics	p. 1
The Holocaust in history and politics	p. 13
Cosmopolitanizing the Holocaust: from the Eichmann trial to identity politics	p. 15
Considering Holocaust uniqueness: from Hebrew peoplehood to the Americanization of memory	p. 35
Colonialism and indigenous identity	p. 59
Colonialism, genocide, and indigenous rights: America, Australia, and New Zealand	p. 61
Uncle Sam's willing executioners? Indigenous genocide and representation in the United States	p. 72
Australia: Aboriginal genocide and the Holocaust	p. 90
Indigenous history through the prism of the Holocaust: New Zealand Maori	p. 104
War, genocide, and nationalism	p. 113
The Armenian genocide: the politics of recognition and denial	p. 115
The Armenian genocide and contemporary Holocaust scholarship	p. 127
Nanking, the Chinese Holocaust, and Japanese atomic victim exceptionalism	p. 144
Serbs, Croats, and the dismemberment of Yugoslavia: war and genocide in the twentieth century	p. 165
Serbophobia and victimhood: Serbia and the successor wars in Yugoslavia	p. 178
Conclusions	p. 195
Notes	p. 206
Index	p. 258
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