Synopsis
Final Solution is an intelligent and thought-provoking short history of the Holocaust, by historian David Cesarani. Employing an insightful Judeocentric perspective, the book casts a fresh look upon one of history's most terrifying periods.
This compelling narrative uncovers the threads of untold stories, using diaries and letters from within ghettos and camps. These precious documents, mostly in Polish and Yiddish, were previously largely inaccessible to Anglo-American scholars. By adopting a rigorously Judeocentric approach the whole narrative of the march to genocide and its aftermath, the book presents a subtly different timeline and engenders a significant re-evaluation of the how and why.
Final Solution provides a powerful re-assessment of the genocide of World War II, avoiding overstated theories about the guilty. It redefines who shares the guilt, shedding light on the subtleties that contributed to such horrifying events.
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Reviews
“A brilliant synthesis and interpretation of the greatest crime of the modern era . . . There is so much of value in this harrowing and extraordinary book that it's hard to encompass in a review . . . There are stories here I didn't know and could scarcely have imagined . . . A book that demands to be read and deserves every historical award going.”Oliver Kamm, The Times
“This is an elegantly written, honest and plausible account and it deserves to be widely read and reflected upon in a continent where racial and religious prejudice is not as far below the surface as we would like to think. Final Solution is a fitting monument to a fine historian and a fine human being.”Richard Overy, Literary Review
“Traces a path across a vast mass of material - new and old - demonstrating with urgency and verve how Hitler's progress towards mass extermination of the Jews was never pre-planned or preordained . . . utterly convincing . . . One of Cesarani's most remarkable achievements is to reinvigorate this monstrous narrative”Sarah Helm, Daily Telegraph
“With his clear, detailed analysis, Cesarani has written a definitive study of the Holocaust that succeeds in bridging the gap between academia and popular understanding.”Lisa Pine, BBC History Magazine
