Rating: 
Summary: Ours is not to wonder why, ...
Review: ... ours is just to do or die.Rarely are profound thoughts and deep insight presented so clearly and succinctly. Richard Rubenstein writes of the holocaust, why it happened, why it happened when it did, and why it may happen again and again. Rubenstein writes, "We are more likely to understand the holocaust if we regard it as the expression of some of the most profound tendencies of Western civilization in the twentieth century." He locates the cause of the holocaust in modernity which he describes as a combination of secularization, disenchantment with the world and rationalization. Secularization is the loss of religious meaning. What is, is, and that's all it is. Disenchantment with the world is the labeling of heaven 'good' (followed by its abolition) and the world 'evil'. Our Bible- grounded secular society gave rise to this dicotomy in Exodus when Adam and Eve originally sinned by gaining knowledge of good and evil. Rationalism is the irrepressible need to master the world through calculation. 'Ours is not to question why, ours is just to do ...' Modernity laid the foundation, and bureaucracy provided the means. Bureaucracy's roots are deep in military organization. Both require a hierarchical structure with decisions made only at the top. Both require layers of non-individuals who follow orders without thought or input, even if the end of the process is massive death. We were (are) just following orders. Just let me do my job. Don't bother me. Bombing cities, manufacturing cigarettes, dealing drugs, killing the earth become matters not of choice but of necessity. To make a moral judgment - any moral judgment - is to set oneself outside society. 'Ours is not to question why ...' Perhaps this is why Rubenstein subtitled his book, "The Holocaust and the American Future." 'Ours is not to question.'
Rating:
Summary: A must for understanding The Holocaust (& future holocausts)
Review: Although published in 1975, Richard L. Rubenstein's The Cunning of History, seeking to derive a definitive "formula" for holocausts and The Holocaust, is still a modern analysis in 1997. Indeed, it probably will be modern 20 years from now; like the laws of physics and chemistry. All of this is accomplished in a deceptively thin, 112 page pocketbook. Like any unsentimental and effective analysis, The Cunning of History is bound to make many people uncomfortable and some even angry. People cannot take too much reality. Nevertheless, Rubenstein made a major contribution to history and understanding by painstakingly tracing the origins and evolution of hyperrational bureaucratic social systems that inexorably drive to total domination, and then extermination of its target victims. Accordingly, first we are instructed of exactly how the Nazi regime of Germany's Third Reich created the system of death camps and how they operated. The management styles of the death camps are likened to those of modern corporations. Thus the Auschwitz society implements a system of total domination: first to extract labor at lowest cost; and then efficiently destroying its surplus labor force. Along the way, Rubenstein gives mankind ample warnings about future holocausts derived from world overpopulation ... coupled with superfluous humans produced by economic "necessity" for burgeoning profits. To recognize the beginnings of the next holocaust as it forms, reading Rubenstein's The Cunning of History is prerequisite. For such a valuable book, the only appropriate rating is 10.
Rating:
Summary: Stunningly Pessimistic--But True?
Review: I first came across a reference to this stunning little book when William Styron featured it in the documentary, "non-fiction" parts of his holocaust novel "Sophie's Choice." I went out and found a copy, and was blown away. It's rare you can find such provocation and insight about great historical themes in such a short book; it's like a larger tome compressed. Among Rubenstein's conclusions: the world is *functionally* Godless because of heavenly failure to protect the Jews. I vigorously disagree with that, but one can see that argument's plausibility "in the face of the burning children." He also concludes that Hitler committed no crime (according to the world's standards) because he had removed the Jews from the purchase of legality through such things as the Nuremberg Laws. His most terrible conclusion (and the one that inspires the title) is that the Holocaust was an unavoidable consequence of Judeo-Christian ideas of progress that led to the Enlightenment--the very rationality indispensible for progress was the Germans' great tool in their mass murder project. Rubenstein prophesies (he is a professor of theology) that future rationalistic governments will use the same tactics to rid themselves of surplus populations. One can argue about this--wasn't the genocide in Rwanda an outburst of atavistic horror and not a planned, modern event in the Serbian sense--but you can't deny the power of his grim perceptions. An unforgettable book.
Rating:
Summary: Stunningly Pessimistic--But True?
Review: I first came across a reference to this stunning little book when William Styron featured it in the documentary, "non-fiction" parts of his holocaust novel "Sophie's Choice." I went out and found a copy, and was blown away. It's rare you can find such provocation and insight about great historical themes in such a short book; it's like a larger tome compressed. Among Rubenstein's conclusions: the world is *functionally* Godless because of heavenly failure to protect the Jews. I vigorously disagree with that, but one can see that argument's plausibility "in the face of the burning children." He also concludes that Hitler committed no crime (according to the world's standards) because he had removed the Jews from the purchase of legality through such things as the Nuremberg Laws. His most terrible conclusion (and the one that inspires the title) is that the Holocaust was an unavoidable consequence of Judeo-Christian ideas of progress that led to the Enlightenment--the very rationality indispensible for progress was the Germans' great tool in their mass murder project. Rubenstein prophesies (he is a professor of theology) that future rationalistic governments will use the same tactics to rid themselves of surplus populations. One can argue about this--wasn't the genocide in Rwanda an outburst of atavistic horror and not a planned, modern event in the Serbian sense--but you can't deny the power of his grim perceptions. An unforgettable book.
Rating:
Summary: Scary Relationship Between "Cunning" and Black Incarceration
Review: I have been an avid fan of Richard Rubenstein's book for many many years. In tandem with Raul Hilberg's magnum opus, "The Destruction of the European Jews, " I think a person will know all they ever will need to know about the Jewish Holocaust and how it just may yet evolve again, this time with African-Americans as the Jews. Most people automatically look at me like I'm insane to even suggest such a thing. But "Cunning" is particularly brilliant in analyzing exactly how and why Auschwitz was no mere death camp, but instead was a completely new form of human social organization. In this light, alone, I can clearly say that Rubenstein's book goes further to explaining the potential dispensation of hundreds of thousands of prisoners in America than any other currently fashionable theory. . The fact is simple, for anybody who reads the papers: Never in American history has the prison system been so stuffed with Black men between the ages of 18 and 30 who now are serving life without parole. Does anybody really think that America's political leaders intend to keep these people alive, fed, and healthy for the next 40 or 50 years, and then spend who knows how many billions of dollars for senior health care? I don't think so. So just what is going to happen with all these "surplus people", that is, people whom society has deemed as criminally useless and never intends to see again? The Jews had to be identified, segregated, incarcerated and then exterminated. Auschwitz altered the formula by introducing the idea of scientifically working them death first, and exterminating anybody who couldn't keep up. Well, we have a million blacks already in prison, a great many doing decades, if not total life without the possibility of release. You do the math. Please read "The Cunning of History." The answers will be more than obvious. And the book has so much to offer than even this, and that was enough for me. Anybody concerned with the possibility of catastrophic ethnic cleansing some day coming BACK (the Indians already had their turn) to America will never be the same after reading this book. And, by the way, I want to print the entire title so you see where Rubenstein's heart is: "The Cunning of History: Mass Death and the American Future." This book isn't historical social analysis. It's prophecy.
Rating:
Summary: The Cunning of History
Review: I thought this book was fabulous. i was asking myself many different questions throught reading Rubenstein's literary work of art. 1.is this book serious or synical? 2.why the subtitle: "The Holocaust and the American Future?
Rating:
Summary: Incredible
Review: If the words "tour de force," having become a book review cliché, means anything at all anymore, it pertains to this book. In less than a hundred pages, Richard Rubenstein writes the most intelligent essay about the Holocaust that I've ever read. I can see why William Styron was so affected by it. Most books on the Holocaust discuss what happened and how. They are, in that sense, perversely sensationalist, dealing with our visceral reactions and moral indignation. Good writers know that a book should go a little beyond this, into wondering why it could have happened in the first place. But fewer still make the claim that the Holocaust was "the expression of some of the most profound tendencies of Western civilization in the twentieth century" rather than "the work of a small group of irresponsible criminals who were atypical of normal statesmen and who somehow gained control of the German people..." It is indeed strange to view Auschwitz as a freak accident just because it makes us feel safe. Unless we can discount that there were social factors that facilitated the justification of massive killings, we cannot assume that it cannot happen elsewhere, and indeed more than a few genocidal killing sprees have occurred at places other than Nazi Germany in the twentieth century, though perhaps without the intense bureaucratic organization. Rubenstein's question is why did this happen in the first place, and the answers he gives are conditions that exist in many countries, including America, today. The Cunning of History is engrossing and enlightening, and still carries with it enormous power. Even in America where we consider ourselves free and just, some lives are valued more than others, whether because of race or financial success or some other invalid reason. History is cunning because it deceives us; Rubenstein's fear is that even if we know what happened and how, history may still likely repeat itself.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible
Review: If the words "tour de force," having become a book review cliché, means anything at all anymore, it pertains to this book. In less than a hundred pages, Richard Rubenstein writes the most intelligent essay about the Holocaust that I've ever read. I can see why William Styron was so affected by it. Most books on the Holocaust discuss what happened and how. They are, in that sense, perversely sensationalist, dealing with our visceral reactions and moral indignation. Good writers know that a book should go a little beyond this, into wondering why it could have happened in the first place. But fewer still make the claim that the Holocaust was "the expression of some of the most profound tendencies of Western civilization in the twentieth century" rather than "the work of a small group of irresponsible criminals who were atypical of normal statesmen and who somehow gained control of the German people..." It is indeed strange to view Auschwitz as a freak accident just because it makes us feel safe. Unless we can discount that there were social factors that facilitated the justification of massive killings, we cannot assume that it cannot happen elsewhere, and indeed more than a few genocidal killing sprees have occurred at places other than Nazi Germany in the twentieth century, though perhaps without the intense bureaucratic organization. Rubenstein's question is why did this happen in the first place, and the answers he gives are conditions that exist in many countries, including America, today. The Cunning of History is engrossing and enlightening, and still carries with it enormous power. Even in America where we consider ourselves free and just, some lives are valued more than others, whether because of race or financial success or some other invalid reason. History is cunning because it deceives us; Rubenstein's fear is that even if we know what happened and how, history may still likely repeat itself.
Rating:
Summary: ParadigmShift!
Review: If you're interested in how technology and bureaucracy combined to lead to genocide, read this book. Enen if you don't think you are, after you read this bgook, you will be. At a time when we're offered so many bloated books on historical subjects, this brief book is a gem. It repays reading and rereading. It may even change the way you view the world. Forget Golhagen and his ilk,this is the best book you can read on the subject.
Rating: 
Summary: Well argued and intelligent
Review: In this essay Richard Rubenstein contends that the Holocaust should be viewed within the context of a tradition of slavery that is deep rooted in western culture. Drawing on Max Weber, Rubenstein argues that the combination of unrestricted capitalism and protestantism helped to create the conditions necessary for the ultimate form of slavery as expressed in the Nazi death camps. Additional factors include a European trend toward viewing certain segments of a given population as expendable. The analysis is thought provoking and intelligently written. My reservation is that while I agree that viewing the holocaust in this way leads one to the conclusion that under the right circumstances genocide on this scale could happen again , I also believe that there was something uniquely evil in the Nazi leadership that contributed to the Holocaust. Rubenstein's analysis focused on historical/economic/social forces at the expense of the personal responsibilty of Hitler and his inner circle. Despite that this is an important book that should be mandatory reading in any study of the Holocaust.
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