“Exhilarating . . . a scholarly tour de force. The story Nirenberg has to tell is not over.â€â€•Adam Kirsch; Tablet This incisive history upends the complacency that confines anti-Judaism to the ideological extremes in the Western tradition. With deep learning and elegance; David Nirenberg shows how foundational anti-Judaism is to the history of the West. Questions of how we are Jewish and; more critically; how and why we are not have been churning within the Western imagination throughout its history. Ancient Egyptians; Greeks; and Romans; Christians and Muslims of every period; even the secularists of modernity have used Judaism in constructing their visions of the world. The thrust of this tradition construes Judaism as an opposition; a danger often from within; to be criticized; attacked; and eliminated. The intersections of these ideas with the world of power―the Roman destruction of the Second Temple; the Spanish Inquisition; the German Holocaust―are well known. The ways of thought underlying these tragedies can be found at the very foundation of Western history. 8 pages of illustrations
#843272 in Books 2006-01-17Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.20 x 1.60 x 6.20l; 2.41 #File Name: 0393327973928 pages
Review
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful. OutstandingBy Francis McInerneyOvery is more than a scholar; he is a deep thinker. There is a world of difference. "The Dictators" is a seminal work comparing how the two greatest dictators of all time exercised control over their political; economic; and military systems all while laying out the implications of this control.It is the painstaking comparison; often paragraph-by-paragraph; that gives this work its magisterial quality. But what really makes "The Dictators" work is how it builds on Overy's previous work; "Why the Allies Won;" which assumed that the Allied victory was not a forgone conclusion in 1940 and asked; and answered; probing questions about comparative command structures; production economies; and capital sources.Without this base; Overy's latest could have become just another book on Hitler and Stalin. And a boring one at that. With it; however; we get insights unavailable elsewhere. Having studied Marxism; Leninism; and the Soviet Union for forty years; I was deeply impressed.The next step in this line of scholarship is to put it in the context of falling information costs. Wealth is created when increasing amounts of ever cheaper information can be substituted for other resources like land; labor; and capital. "The Dictators" describes how Hitler and Stalin did the opposite; systematically lowering the cost of information or themselves and raising it for everyone else.Following Overy's reasoning in "Why the Allies Won" the question is; absenting world war; was the Dictator system sustainable? If so; for how long? This question is critical to understanding the future of China as it tries to contain falling information costs and keep some semblance of Party leadership. And critical to us in trying to manage our relationship with China. Next book Mr. Overy?Editing: Five Stars. Comparing two systems across so many functions page-by-page and often paragraph-by paragraph can quickly become unwieldy and most would advise strongly against it. Better to keep each leader to his own chapter. But Overy carries this off and his editor wisely let him proceed.Copy Editing: Five Stars32 of 37 people found the following review helpful. An interesting thesisBy 1.Overy makes the controversial thesis that Hitler's regime was more revolutionary than Stalin's Russia. Overy claims that the Nazi party began to take over areas of the German economy while Stalin after the nineteen thirties left the economy in the hands of economist and engineers. Also during the war years the Nazi party was taking over control of military operations; but Stalin was ceding control to his generals. The Gestapo was not constrained by any law while the Soviet NKVD in the early forties was scrutinize by some judicial oversight. Finallly the Nazis eliminated ethinic groups based on their race and the Soviets judged other ethinic groups based on their loyalty to the Soviet state. The main weakness of Overy's book is that he skims over Stalin's collectivization drive and how it resulted in the deaths of millions of Soviet citizens through stravation and repression. Despite this weakness; I would reccomend this book for anyone ineterested in a comparason of these two regimes.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. A MasterpieceBy YodaThis book does an extraordinary job at comparing the similarities in the means used by Nazi and Stalinist regimes. The use of mass media; the police (both secret and non-political); the use of prisons; cults of personality; etc. was remarkably similar between these two regimes. Dr. Overy documents their overlap in great detail and makes the case; at least from the perspective of means and tools; they were flip sides of the coin.On the negative side the book is weak at the fundamental differences between the regimes in terms of ideology and the persons of Hitler and Stalin. The Nazi state was based on the importance and centrality of the ethnos while the Soviet was based; in an ill-defined way; on Marxist-Leninist ideology (whatever that may mean – even the Communist Party of the Soviet Union could not define this). In addition; the distinct personalities of Hitler and Stalin played a unique role in the Nazi and Stalinist regimes. With respect to Hitler; it seems doubtful if Nazism could have come into existence or continued without Hitler (or at least in the vicious form that it did). On the other hand; the Soviet Union’s Orwellian regime would probably have existed in more or less the same form whether or not Stalin had existed or not. The Communist Party’s leadership in the Soviet Union consisted primarily of individuals who had a mindset; particularly in terms of ideology; ruthlessness and worldview very similar to Stalin’s.Despite these weaknesses this is still and extraordinary book in its comparison of the two regimes. Very highly recommended.
