MARC Record from Library of Congress

LEADER: 03032cam a2200385 i 4500
001 2013051212
003 DLC
005 20140719081136.0
008 131230s2014 nyu b 001 0 eng
010 $a 2013051212
020 $a9780465080243 (hardback : alkaline paper)
020 $z9780465036646 (ebook)
040 $aDLC$beng$cDLC$erda$dDLC
042 $apcc
043 $ae-gx---
050 00 $aD804.3$b.M398 2014
082 00 $a940.53/1811$223
084 $aHIS043000$aHIS014000$aHIS037070$aHIS022000$2bisacsh
100 1 $aMcMillan, Dan,$cPh.D.
245 10 $aHow could this happen :$bexplaining the Holocaust /$cDan McMillan.
264 1 $aNew York :$bBasic Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group,$c2014.
300 $axi, 276 pages ;$c24 cm
336 $atext$2rdacontent
337 $aunmediated$2rdamedia
338 $avolume$2rdacarrier
520 2 $a"The Holocaust has long seemed incomprehensible, a monumental crime that beggars our powers of description and explanation. Historians have probed the many sources of this tragedy, but no account has united the various causes into an overarching synthesis that answers the vital question: How was such a nightmare possible in the heart of Western civilization? In How Could This Happen, historian Dan McMillan distills the vast body of Holocaust research into a cogent explanation and comprehensive analysis of the genocide's many causes, revealing how a once-progressive society like Germany could have carried out this crime. The Holocaust, he explains, was caused not by one but by a combination of factors--from Germany's failure to become a democracy until 1918, to the widespread acceptance of anti-Semitism and scientific racism, to the effects of World War I, which intensified political divisions within the country and drastically lowered the value of human life in the minds of an entire generation. Masterfully synthesizing the myriad causes that led Germany to disaster, McMillan shows why thousands of Germans carried out the genocide while millions watched, with cold indifference, as it enveloped their homeland. Persuasive and compelling, How Could This Happen explains how a perfect storm of bleak circumstances, malevolent ideas, and damaged personalities unleashed history's most terrifying atrocity"--$cProvided by publisher.
504 $aIncludes bibliographical references and index.
505 0 $aPosing the question -- A genocide like no other -- Why Germany? -- A world of enemies -- Hardened by war -- Division and disaster -- Why Hitler? -- From dictator to demigod -- Why the Jewish people? -- Hatred as science -- The absent moral compass -- What they knew.
650 0 $aHolocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)$xCauses.
651 0 $aGermany$xSocial conditions$y1918-1933.
651 0 $aGermany$xSocial conditions$y1933-1945.
651 0 $aGermany$xPolitics and government$y1933-1945.
650 7 $aHISTORY / Europe / Germany.$2bisacsh
650 7 $aHISTORY / Modern / 20th Century.$2bisacsh
650 7 $aHISTORY / Jewish.$2bisacsh