- Summary
- Reflections of a sociologist on the Holocaust and on modern civilization, examining them on three levels: the "micro" (individuals who perpetrated the Holocaust), the "meso" (the role of the bureaucracy), and the "macro" (civilization as a whole). Supports, with some reservations, the viewpoints of Hannah Arendt and Stanley Milgram that there was nothing pathological in the Nazis; the perpetrators were ordinary people who obeyed a malevolent authority. Shows the role played by hierarchy, division of labor, and bureaucracy in the genocide. The bureaucracy placed effectiveness above human morality. Maintains that the Holocaust is a highly modern phenomenon, and that the spirit of the Enlightenment also bears responsibility for it. Shows many similarities between American racism in the fields of science and law and that of the Nazis. Reflects on the memory of the Holocaust and the attempts to view it in different historical perspectives, to distort it for the sake of present-day political needs. (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism).
- Format
- Book
- Author/Creator
- Markle, Gerald E., 1942- author.
- Published
- Albany : State University of New York Press, [1995]
©1995
- Locale
- USA
- Contents
-
Stone Soup
Thinking
Snapshots
Gray
Approaches
Meditation
Banality
Eichmann
Ordinary Killers
Ordinary People
Are We All Nazis?
Abraham's Choice
Bureaucracy
Routine Slaughter
Two Visions
Blood and Honor
Functionalism
Forgetting
Krema
Modernity
Total Domination
Gardening
Medical Experiments
The American Connection
Enlightment?
A Dialogue
After
In Memoriam
Collective Memory
Historiography
Today
Anamnesis
An Ending?
Another Ending.
- Notes
-
Includes bibliographical references (pages 155-167) and indexes.
Stone Soup -- Thinking -- Snapshots -- Gray -- Approaches -- Meditation -- Banality -- Eichmann -- Ordinary Killers -- Ordinary People -- Are We All Nazis? -- Abraham's Choice -- Bureaucracy -- Routine Slaughter -- Two Visions -- Blood and Honor -- Functionalism -- Forgetting -- Krema -- Modernity -- Total Domination -- Gardening -- Medical Experiments -- The American Connection -- Enlightment? -- A Dialogue -- After -- In Memoriam -- Collective Memory -- Historiography -- Today -- Anamnesis -- An Ending? -- Another Ending.
