Sources of Holocaust insight : learning and teaching about the genocide

In this book Roth (emer., philosophy, Claremont McKenna College) traces his evolution as a Holocaust scholar, particularly his thoughts about first-generation Holocaust writers. Some were survivors who wrote seminal works on the Shoah; others were intellectuals from a variety of disciplines and countries. Roth's subjects profoundly influenced his thinking and writing and also set the course for how scholars across the globe have taught, discussed, and thought about the Holocaust. Holocaust scholars will not necessarily learn anything new, but Roth's succinct, perceptive analyses of the giants in Holocaust scholarship make fascinating reading. He devotes chapters to Elie Wiesel, Raul Hilberg, Richard Rubenstein, Franklin Littell, Primo Levi, and Jean Améry, among many other early Holocaust writers. As one of the first Christian scholars to tackle what the Shoah meant, Roth is sensitive to the central role of religion in the genocide, writing that "no example of mass murder exceeds the Holocaust in raising so directly and so insistently the question of how or even whether such a catastrophe can be reconciled with God's providential involvement in history" (p. 11). For Roth--as for others--the tragedy of the genocide is what human beings can do to one another; asking questions about human nature is essential to trying to understand the incomprehensible. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers. --Glenn R. Sharfman, Oglethorpe University