War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust (Critical Issues in History) - Tapa dura

Doris Bergen encapsulates this complex history with intelligence and insight. She has written a sure and fluid introduction to the Holocaust.--Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, author of Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust

In examining one of the defining events of the 20th Century, Doris Bergen situates the Holocaust in its historical, political, social, cultural, and military contexts. Unlike many other treatments of the Holocaust, Nazism, World War II, and the Holocaust discusses not only the persecution of the Jews, but also other segments of society victimized by the Nazis: Gypsies, Homosexuals, Poles, Soviet POWs, disabled people and other groups deemed undesirable. With clear and eloquent prose, Bergen explores the two interconnected goals that drove the Nazi program of conquest and genocide-purification of the so-called Aryan race and expansion of its living space. She examines how these goals affected the course of World War II and the book includes first-hand accounts from perpetrators, victims, and eyewitnesses, making it immediate, human and eminently readable.