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Rating:  Summary: If one is going to attempt revisionism, at least be creative Review: An amusing book, in a rather sad way. What this book is is a compilation of articles from prominent holocaust deniers, many pretty thoroughly discredited. The problem is that the arguments are rather traditional, using theroies that were generally blown apart from an evidence standpoint long ago. While the mental gymnastics are entertaining, they lack the creative spark that one might hope for. In essence, if you are going to spew the idea that the Jews just wandered off, at least come up with something new. Space aliens is a good one and hasn't been done yet.
Kidding aside, the book is a pasted together compilation of poorly constructed excuses for the Nazis and their genocidal actions. It fails as serious scholarship and has barely a passing aquaintence with any type of scientific examinations of the existing evidence. If you want to reinforce beliefs that the evil Jews made the whole Holocaust up and aren't troubled by poor writing and reasoning, you'll enjoy this book. For anyone else, it's not really worth your time.
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Rating:  Summary: The Most Important Work of Holocaust Criticism Review: The clearest discussion yet on why we need to question history....in this case the bizarre claims that have been made about the Holocaust. Dissecting the Holocaust is a triumph of learning, logic, and lucidity.
Rating:  Summary: A dangerous book Review: This book, Dissecting the Holocaust, is banned in Germany. The authorities there raided the publisher, the distributors, the sellers and anyone else they could lay their hands on, and literally burned all the copies they found. They tried to arrest the editor, who fled and is now an exile. Put it in your suitcase next time you visit there--discover the way the myth works...The book is a muliti-author compilation of scholarly articles that discuss some features of the traditional myth of the holocaust, and compare it in various ways with what is known to be plausible, logical, true, scientific, and sometimes, even, common sensical. Many of the chapters are not easy to read. They contain tables of death, graphs of HCN release rates, coke delivery schedules, and calculations of muffle capacities. If your taste runs to Wilkomirskian fantasies rather than engineering perspectives, don't bother with this book--you'll just wind up confused. If your inclination is toward the metaphysical, emotional and literary version of what happened, rather than the scientific, historical, verifiable, and objective, then just skip this book. You won't like it. Personally, I have a rather distinct prejudice in favor of graphs, tables, equations and common sense. I can even read and understand statistical arguments about census data before and after the war. I understand that eyewitness accounts are generally less reliable sources of information than contemporary documents and forensic evidence. I believe that testimony obtained by torture for show trials shortly after a major war is generally unreliable. Therefore, this book speaks to me. It tells me that for over 40 years, the plaque at Auschwitz claimed that four million died there, but which has been replaced with one that claims 1.5 million. It shows pictures of the supposed gas chambers that are entirely devoid of the stains of prussian blue that are hallmarks of cyanide gas. The book proves to me that the diesel engine exhaust, claimed by "eyewitnesses" to have been used in the majority of gassings, cannot kill. The book tells me about the laws used in Europe to punish those who question the reliability of propaganda, rumor and religious beliefs as a basis for historical truth. This book is more powerful than a thousand novels like Wiesel's Night, Wilkomirski's Fragments, and Nyiszli's Auschwitz. It will be suppressed, censored and ignored for decades to come.
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