Constructing The Holocaust: A Study In Historiography

“Constructing the Holocaust examines the development of Holocaust historiography in the light of recent critical philosophy of history. It argues that the Holocaust provides both the occasion for, and the ultimate test of, new ways of giving meaning to the past. It also shows that examining our representations of the past is as important as archival research for understanding history.” “The problem under investigation is the paradox of using tools and methods inherited from western civilization in order to write about a set of events – the Holocaust – that impugn fundamental tenets of that very civilization. This paradox, though historians of the Holocaust increasingly acknowledge it, has not been investigated in detail before. This book explains how the paradox arose and why it remains largely unchallenged. It also points to ways of overcoming it.” “On the one hand, then, this is traditional historiography: the history of history writing. On the other hand, the problem is approached via recent work in the philosophy of history, closely analysing historical works as texts. This is an interdisciplinary study that brings to bear on historiography the kind of textual analysis usually reserved for fiction, testimony, or film.” The Holocaust, precisely because it throws into doubt older methodologies, demands the search for new ones. Showing how Holocaust historians inadvertently and paradoxically reinscribe into the wider culture patterns of thought that the Holocaust repudiated, Constructing the Holocaust tries to respond to the Holocaust in a way that recognises its potential impact on usually unquestioned beliefs and unspoken methodological assumptions.