Voyage Of Discovery To The North Pacific Ocean, And Round The World In The Years 1790-95 ( 3 Volumes )

Customer Reviews:

Wonderful first hand account.......2001-07-04

George Vancouver served as a midshipman under Captain James Cook during Cook's earlier voyage to the Pacific Northwest and in 1790 he got a chance to take two ships, the Discovery and the Chatham, for his own adventures there. Vancouver's writing style is sometimes factual (he knew when writing the journals that they would have to be handed over to the Admiralty upon his return) but always interesting. He matter of factly recounts the fascinating events that punctuate the voyage and never loses sight of his objectives - to liberate the English fort on Vancouver Island from the Spanish and the ever present objective of the times - to find a North West Passage.

These journals also form a fascinating historical account of the day to day activities aboard a voyage of naval exploration, as well as explaining why so many bays, islands and sounds bear the names Howe and Chatham (two of the Lords of the Admiralty at the time). I found that if you read these journals with a good atlas, you will also note that almost every member of the crews of both ships has a contribution to today's world geography - including Mount Baker and Puget Sound (in Washington State) and Vancouver and Vancouver Island (in British Columbia).

All in all a fascinating read, and one that makes the reader feel as if they are sailing as a passenger on that epic journey.

Average customer rating:

I'll keep this short...

Mad Man Across the Water

A decent book...

REIGN OF TERROR ON THE HIGH SEAS

19th Century Whaling - Loss of Your Romance Innocence

In the Wake of Madness: The Murderous Voyage of the Whaleship Sharon
Joan Druett
Manufacturer: Algonquin Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

19th Century | World | History | Subjects | Books
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History | Ships | Transportation | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
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Demon of the Waters: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Whaleship Globe

ASIN: 1565123476

Book Description

On May 25, 1841, the whaleship Sharon of Fairhaven, Massachusetts, set out for the whaling grounds of the northwestern Pacific under the command of Captain Howes Norris. A year later, while most of the crew was out on the hunt, Norris remained at the helm with four crew members-three of them natives from the Pacific Islands. When the men in the whaleboats spied the Sharon's flag flying at half-mast-a signal of distress-they rowed toward the ship to discover their Captain had been hacked to pieces. His murderers, the Pacific Islanders, were covered in blood and brandishing weapons. Unless the crew could retake the Sharon, their prospects of survival were slim. The nearest land was seven hundred miles away.

In an astonishing single-handed recapture, the third officer, Benjamin Clough, swam through shark-infested waters in the dead of night, slipped through one of the cabin windows, and launched a surprise attack on the mutineers, killing two of them and overtaking the other. Though news of Clough's courageous act spread quickly through ports around the globe, an American investigation into the shipboard crimes was never conducted-even when the Sharon returned home three years later, with only four of the original twenty-nine crew on board. The true story of what happened aboard the Sharon remained buried for over 150 years.

Through recently discovered journals of the ship's cooper and the third officer, award-winning maritime historian Joan Druett unearths the mystery of the ill-fated whaleship.

Dramatically and meticulously recreating the events of the Sharon, Druett pieces together a voyage filled with savagery and madness under the command of one of the most ruthless captains to sail the high seas. Like The Pirate Hunter and Blue Latitudes, IN THE WAKE OF MADNESS brings to life a riveting story and exposes the secrets that followed the men of the Sharon to their graves.

Customer Reviews:

I'll keep this short..........2006-01-19

The tale of the "Sharon" is an interesting one, indeed. Ms. Druett is a knowledgable historian, and perhaps a very fine text book author. However, this particular book is disjointed. It is extremely frustrating to the reader when one of the main principals in this storyis "never to be heard from again" WHAT? after two hundred pages, I would have liked at least some rumors of his fate. Another dies an early death, time and place noted, but NO CAUSE of death. AARRGGGHHH. Also distracting are the continual references to Herman Melville, who was neither present, nor directly involved with the story at all. In all, the story could be interesting, and I hope someone else will take it up, because I felt somewhat cheated.

Mad Man Across the Water.......2005-11-16

High seas adventure with one of the most psychopath captains to command a ship. While it is a well known fact that many captains, especially those of whaling ships, were rigid, callous and at times barbaric in their conduct, Howes Norris was in the upper echelon of this deranged behavioral class.
Whether it was horrific floggings, withholding food, or senseless other malicious acts of torment, some may say that Norris got what was coming to him. Joan Druett attempts to unfold the mystery of Norris' murder through two journals that were shrouded in secrecy for over 150 years.
It is a good, entertaining read. For this reader though, the evidence is still inconclusive as to who was really responsible for Norris' death. All indications are that the two slain natives were held accountable but who was really the instigator?

A decent book..........2005-09-15

Add this to the list of maritime disaster books that are springing up. As this book doesn't go into as much detail about the whaling industry as several of the others, it is a very quick read (a rainy weekend should do it). Of interest were the sections on beachcombers and runaway slaves.

It is well written and is a page turner. Most of the material comes from 2 "long lost" journals written by 2 members of the crew. Unfortunately they did not witness the actual murder so there is some question as to what actually happened.

This is an enjoyable read (that you can actually get at your local B&N for $4.98 right now (hardcover even)).. If you like this you might also try:

Moby Dick (the book almost all of these other "non-fictional" books reference.

Neil Hanson's Custom of the Sea
Gregory Gibson's Demon of the Water
Glyn Williams' The Prize of All the Oceans (my favorite of the group)
Mike Dash's Batavia's Graveyard
Caroline Alexander's The Bounty
Sir John Barrow's Mutiny
Nathanial Philbrick's In the Heart of Sea
Davis Shaw's The Sea Shall Embrace Them
Sebastian Junger's The Perfect Storm
Doug Stanton's In Harm's Way

REIGN OF TERROR ON THE HIGH SEAS.......2005-09-02

"Whaling captains were men who left their souls at home."

On May 25, 1841, the whaling ship Sharon departed Fairhaven, Massachusetts for the limitless Pacific. She sailed under the command of Captain Howes Norris.

The sun was already setting on America's whaling industry. Consistent successful voyages had inspired investors to build more and more ships, which swelled America's whaling fleet to its largest in history. This resulted in an acute shortage of competent sailors--especially harpooners--which thereupon resulted in unqualified crews manning the ships, and particularly the whaleboats, the small craft dispatched to harpoon the whales. Not to mention, years of successful voyages had drastically reduced the sperm whale population. Now, what few whales were sighted, inexperienced harpooners often failed to drive in the harpoon deeply enough to kill, or even missed their gargantuan targets altogether. If a whaling master failed to bring home at least 1,500 barrels of oil, he seriously risked never being granted a command again.

And the somewhat inexperienced, somewhat innocent crew of the Sharon weighed anchor under the restless command of Howes Norris. It was to become one of the most notorious voyages of the 19th century.

Month after month slid by . . . the Sharon paced along the broiling equator, ever hopeful, but seldom satisfied. If she stopped at an island for provisions, desertion was commonplace. Men would jump ship in the night and swim a half-mile to shore. And so natives were taken aboard to fill vacancies. A somewhat inexperienced crew was rendered even more inexperienced.

On a fine Pacific day in November 1842, as the vast majority of the scant crew were out in the whaleboats, Captain Norris was viciously murdered--literally cut in two--by natives recruited at Rotuma. What could have inspired such horrific violence? Was this an unprovoked attack by savages? Or was it retribution?

This is one of the most readable nautical books I've ever read. The author convincingly evokes the monotony of life at sea, the explosive results of close quarters, the frustration of a captain on a fruitless voyage, and the terror of a man with unquestionable authority. With this book, I could feel the deck swaying beneath my feet; I could see the wet decks steaming in the equatorial sun.

The author paints beautiful portraits of exotic locales visited by the Sharon, islands such as Nukuoro, Rotuma, Banaba, and Kiribati. She also draws compelling parallels between the Sharon's ugly voyage and the fiction of Herman Melville, who himself served aboard whalers and witnessed firsthand the cruelty of angry shipmasters.

Anyone looking to start a nautical library--this book would be a perfect first purchase.

19th Century Whaling - Loss of Your Romance Innocence.......2004-12-29

I received this volume from my daughter for Christmas just for 4 days ago. I asked if she had read it or knew it to be a good read. She said no, but she knows I have an interest in whaling and my love for Melville's Moby Dick (both the book and the original film with Peck, Wells, Basehart, & Genn). I gobbled this book up in 2 sitting in 2 days by the woodstove and a measure of two of rum.

This text covers subjects untouched in Moby Dick and educates the reader of many of the generally prevalent practices of crew desertion and replacement by beachcombers (castaways or other deserters) and island natives, as well as the asylum sought out by ex-slaves on whalers. The reality of the interrelationships of shipmasters, officers, and mates all hailing from New Bedford, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket interact with the pride (or shame) and prestige associated with a 3- to 5-year voyage all play an intricate role in how a ship and crew are exploited in hte interest of filling the hold with sperm whale oil.

Druett lays out many of the gruesome facts in the preface; this is not a "who done it" so much as an introspective look at what occurred and what was logged (and by whom) about events on the whaler Sharon (1841-1845).

I call it a text, not a novel, because of its educational commentary and with oft-times seemingly legal asides that provide precedent for and explanation of common whaling voyage events (social, disciplinary, and the taking and rending of whales). Darker than Moby Dick because it's true and more shocking than Moby Dick because Ahab's twisted mind and actions were obviously not something unique to the fictitious Pequod. A respected family man ashore on Martha's Vineyard but also a sadistic, single-minded, tyrant on the sea.

Be prepared to view Mystic Seaport, the Charles W. Morgan, New Bedford, Vineyard Haven, Edgartown, East Chop, Farihaven, and Nantucket a bit differently - that is - your perspective widened, your eyes opened, and a bit of romantic innocence will be lost forever if you turn these pages.

From Maps to Metaphors: The Pacific World of George Vancouver

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From Maps to Metaphors: The Pacific World of George Vancouver

Manufacturer: UBC Press
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The Last Great Sea: A Voyage Through the Human and Natural History of the North Pacific Ocean

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The Last Great Sea: A Voyage Through the Human and Natural History of the North Pacific Ocean
Terry Glavin
Manufacturer: Greystone Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Human Geography | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 1550549545

Book Description

Terry Glavin sheds light on the mysteries of the North Pacific Ocean — a place of cultural and ecological richness and complexity. The maritime history of the North Pacific is rife with apocryphal voyages, legendary armadas, lost colonies, and fabled portals through continents. Glavin also explores current ecological phenomena — huge phytoplankton blooms and dying birds and fish — and the significance of these events. The Last Great Sea is a thoroughly researched, beautifully written exploration of one of the world’s most mysterious places.

Fodor's Gay Guide to Los Angeles and Southern California, 1st Edition (Fodor's Gay Guide to Los Angeles and Southern California)

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Fodor's Gay Guide to Los Angeles and Southern California, 1st Edition (Fodor's Gay Guide to Los Angeles and Southern California)
Andrew Collins
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General | Nonfiction | Gay & Lesbian | Subjects | Books

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Book Description

Personable and chatty, informative and candid, this guide with an attitude gives the complete lowdown on gay and lesbian Los Angeles, Laguna Beach, Palm Springs, San Diego, and Santa Barbara -- from high profile West Hollywood to secluded Black's Beach.

With tips on the hippest guest houses, the hottest bars, the most romantic restaurants, the gayest neighborhoods, and all the major attractions, Fodor's Gay Guide to Los Angeles and Southern California is a one-stop introduction to the best of the region.

Praise for Fodor's Gay Guide to the USA, winner of the Lowell Thomas Bronze Medal:

"Savvy and stylish." -- Travel & Leisure

"Solidly written and wonderfully informative...marks a watershed in guidebook publishing." -- New York Times Syndicate

"...Heavy with detail and description and well-written." -- Out & About

"Quite simply, if it's out there, it's in here." -- Harry Taylor, Publisher, Out magazine

About the Author

As a former Fodor's editor, inveterate traveler Andrew Collins knows what's worth recommending -- and what's not. He has visited more places popular with gay men and lesbians than most people see in a lifetime.

Other books in Fodor's Gay Guide series (all by Andrew Collins):

Fodor's Gay Guide to the USA (2nd ed.)

Fodor's Gay Guide to Amsterdam

Fodor's Gay Guide to New York City

Fodor's Gay Guide to the Pacific Northwest

Fodor's Gay Guide to San Francisco

Fodor's Gay Guide to South Florida

Fodor's Gay Guide to the Pacific Northwest, 1st Edition (Fodor's Gay Guide to the Pacific Northwest)

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Fodor's Gay Guide to the Pacific Northwest, 1st Edition (Fodor's Gay Guide to the Pacific Northwest)
Andrew Collins
Manufacturer: Fodor's
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General | Nonfiction | Gay & Lesbian | Subjects | Books

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Book Description

Personable and chatty, informative and candid, this guide with an attitude gives the complete lowdown on Seattle, Vancouver, and Portland—with side trips to the Gulf and San Juan Islands, Victoria, and Eugene, Oregon.

With tips on the hippest guest houses, the hottest gay bars, the most romantic restaurants, the gayest neighborhoods, and all the major attractions, Fodor's Gay Guide to the Pacific Northwest is a one-stop introduction to the best of the region.

Praise for Fodor's Gay Guide to the USA, winner of the Lowell Thomas Travel Bronze Medal:

"Savvy and Stylish."—Travel & Leisure

"A watershed in guidebook publishing."—New York Times Syndicate

"A very solid choice."—Out & About

"Quite simply, if it's out there, it's in here."—Harry Taylor, Publisher, Out magazine

About the Author:

As a former Fodor's editor, inveterate traveler Andrew Collins knows what's worth recommending -- and what's not. He has visited more places popular with gay men and lesbians than most people see in a lifetime.

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Fodor's Gay Guide to the USA (2nd ed.)

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Mackenzie beat Lewis and Clark to the Pacific

Journal of the Voyage to the Pacific
Alexander MacKenzie
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Mexico | Americas | History | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0486288943

Customer Reviews:

Mackenzie beat Lewis and Clark to the Pacific.......2000-05-11

Lewis and Clark get all the acclaim, but we should not forget that Mackenzie made it overland to the Pacific first. Mackenzie's account is every bit as fascinating, exciting, and at times harrowing as Lewis and Clark's. I most enjoyed the detailed descriptions of Canada's natives and Mackenzie's dealings with them. I was also fascinated by the daily hardships of the voyageurs who accompanied Mackenzie and made this long canoe trip possible. Like most old travel diaries, there are many lattitude/longitude details that become tiresome to the geographical novice. However, the excellent footnotes in this edition make the reader aware of the modern day towns and landmarks that Mackenzie passed. Many times the footnotes got me through some of the more dull passages in the book. I would heartily recommend this exciting account to anyone who enjoys early accounts of American and Canadian exploration and travel.

Three Voyages For The Discovery Of A Northwest Passage From The Atlantic To The Pacific, And Narrative Of An Attempt To Reach The North Pole, Volume I

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Three Voyages For The Discovery Of A Northwest Passage From The Atlantic To The Pacific, And Narrative Of An Attempt To Reach The North Pole, Volume I
Sir William Edward Parry
Manufacturer: Echo Library
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General | Travel | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1847023959

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Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and Narrative of an Attempt to Reach the North Pole, Volume 2
William Edward Parry
Manufacturer: BiblioBazaar
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Book Description

The gale, which had for some time been blowing from the northward, veered to the N.W.b.W., and increased in strength on the 1st of July, which soon began to produce the effect of drifting the ice off the land. At six oâ€™clock on the 2d, the report from the hill being favourable, and the wind and weather now also sufficiently so, we moved out of our winterâ€™s dock, which was, indeed, in part broken to pieces by the swell that had lately set into the bay.

Civil and Savage Encounters: The Worldly Travel Letters of an Imperial Russian Navy Officer, 1860-1861 (North Pacific Studies Series ; No. 5)

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An obscure, but wonderful book!

Civil and Savage Encounters: The Worldly Travel Letters of an Imperial Russian Navy Officer, 1860-1861 (North Pacific Studies Series ; No. 5)
Pavel Nikolaevich Golovin
Manufacturer: Oregon Historical Society Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Russia | History | Subjects | Books

Customer Reviews:

An obscure, but wonderful book!.......2002-02-21

I found a copy of CIVIL AND SAVAGE ENCOUNTERS in a little bookstore while vacationing in Alaska. The Alaskan landscape is beautiful and awe inspiring. However, once I started reading this diary, I couldn't stop. It is a treasure! I stress, I became so engrossed in Golovin's exceptional descriptions, I totally lost interest in the beauty of Alaska. I don't understand why this diary did not become a best seller.

I loved Golovin's comparative descriptions between his beloved Russia and Europe. Americans will be mesmerized by his perception of the American Civil War.

Golovin has a charming and wonderful vividness in his writing style. Could he have intended for his diary to be published? On the other hand, I have often heard it said that we have lost the art of good writing. We'll never learn the answer. Regardless, CIVIL AND SAVAGE ENCOUNTERS is a wonderful piece of literature.

Amazon.com

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners was one of the most acclaimed nonfiction books of 1996 ... in the mainstream press, that is. Some historians who specialize in World War II-era Germany and the Holocaust have had considerably less kind things to say about Goldhagen's hypothesis that, rather than an aberrant anomaly perpetrated by Nazi archvillains, the Holocaust was an atrocity in which ordinary Germans at all levels of society, motivated by underlying anti-Semitic cultural assumptions, willingly took part. A Nation on Trial is a reprinting and expansion of two scholarly articles published in 1997 which directly challenged Goldhagen's thesis and research techniques.

Norman Finkelstein considers Goldhagen's book "a monument to question-begging" that is "worthless as scholarship." He attacks what he describes as Goldhagen's overemphasis on "eliminationist antisemitism," which raises every anti-Semitic sentiment in German history to murderous intent. "How many white Americans do not harbor any negative stereotypes about black people?" Finkelstein asks rhetorically. "If Goldhagen is correct, we are all closet racial psychopaths." To debunk that notion, Finkelstein analyzes at length Goldhagen's consideration of the pre-Holocaust social segregation of the Jews, which Goldhagen identifies as "the maximum feasible eliminationist option possible given the existing opportunities and constraints," ultimately concluding that it "barely differed from the Jim Crow system in the American South." Although this is clearly intended to undermine Goldhagen's argument about the intensity of Germany's desire to kill the Jews in its midst, it is not exactly reassuring. One can easily flip the idea around so that "the Jim Crow system barely differed from pre-Holocaust Germany's treatment of the Jews," and while that might not make America precisely a nation of "closet racial psychopaths," it certainly does not--and should not--provide any comfort for American readers.

Ruth Bettina Birn pronounces an equally harsh verdict: "His treatment of these matters is naïve and does not meet accepted scholarly standards." At one point, she even accuses him of deploying irony in a sarcastic manner "wholly undignified" in an academic work. Like Finkelstein, she raises important questions about the methods by which Goldhagen selected the source material from which he extrapolated his conclusions, and about the risk Hitler's Willing Executioners runs of succumbing to the pornography of violence to drive home its theoretical points. And Birn shares Finkelstein's conclusion that "Goldhagen wants to graft an ahistorical and monocausal thesis onto a body of historical and multicausal scholarship."

One of the most important questions A Nation on Trial must address is why Hitler's Willing Executioners was able to capture so much attention. Birn is content to credit the "professional American marketing strategy" behind the book for its public success. Finkelstein jumps into a much more dangerous minefield by delineating a distinction between "holocaust scholarship" and "Holocaust literature," identifying the latter as "in effect the Zionist account of the Nazi holocaust," a genre of writing that positions the Holocaust as a historically unique incident in which only the suffering of the Nazi's Jewish victims merits substantial consideration. In making this categorization, he essentially labels Goldhagen's work an act of propaganda, "touted as the ultimate testament to the Nazi Holocaust... [which] fundamentally diminishes its moral significance."

Goldhagen does have a tendency toward the hyperbolic, as indicated in statements such as, "The extent and virulence of the verbal violence assaulting the Jews from their own countrymen have no parallel in modern history," a point which African Americans, Pakistanis in England, and a host of others might care to debate. But while he argues that "Germans' antisemitic beliefs about Jews were the central causal agent of the Holocaust," he also freely admits, in the introduction to the German edition, that "[n]o adequate explanation for the Holocaust can be monocausal," and that anti-Semitism accounts only for the motivation of "the will to kill Jews." And while both authors accuse Goldhagen of blaming the entire German nation for the Holocaust, Goldhagen (again, in the German edition) explicitly rejects collective guilt, stating that "we must recognize that individual Germans were not will-less cogs in a machine, were not automatons, but were responsible actors, were capable of making choices, and were ultimately the authors of their own actions." The debate certainly does not end with this book; both Goldhagen and Finkelstein have created Web sites to which they routinely post responses to the ongoing criticism of their work. If you want to understand the controversy surrounding Hitler's Willing Executioners, however, A Nation on Trial is a necessary point of reference. --Ron Hogan

Book Description

No recent work of history has generated as much interest as Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners. Purporting to solve the mystery of the Nazi holocaust, Goldhagen maintains that ordinary Germans were driven by fanatical anti-Semitism to murder the Jews. An immediate national best-seller, the book went on to create an international sensation.

Now, in A Nation on Trial, two leading critics challenge Goldhagen's findings and show that his work is not scholarship at all. With compelling cumulative effect, Norman G. Finkelstein meticulously documents Goldhagen's distortions of secondary literature and the internal contradictions of his argument. In a complementary essay, Ruth Bettina Birn juxtaposes Goldhagen's text against the German archives he consulted. The foremost international authority on these archives, Birn conclusively demonstrates that Goldhagen systematically misrepresented their contents.

The definitive statement on the Goldhagen phenomenon, this volume is also a cautionary tale on the corruption of scholarship by ideological zealotry.

Customer Reviews:

Great book, about this subject........2006-03-07

Norman G. Finkelstein (a jew)made this great book.This book is an antidote, against the ridiculous book by (another jew) Goldhagen.
To exemple, had Jim Crow's laws, be good for colored amaricans?
No.Then, why to demonize germans?
Germany exterminated some millions of jews, but what the soviet jews made massive genocides to ucranians, russians,etc.
Do somebody calls the jews, as devils?No.
The US's governement wiped out millions of indians in US's territory.Are the americans devils because of this?No.
This book is great, about this subject.

Highly Misleading.......2004-11-23

Daniel Goldhagen's best-seller "Hitler's Willing Executioners" claimed that the Holocaust was the culmination of extreme popular prejudice which permeated German society. The thesis is certainly open to dispute and has been rejected by some prominent historians. This book, however, makes absolutely no contribution to the debate and seems to be motivated by ideology rather than the search for historical truth.

Ruth Bettina Birn - chief historian at the Canadian Justice Department's war crimes unit - offers a doctored version of an earlier essay (Historical Journal, 40:1, 1997), which Goldhagen demolished at length ("The Fictions of Ruth Bettina Birn," German Politics and Society, 15:3, Fall 1997, online). In a typical example, Birn had accused Goldhagen of arguing that the German is generally "brutal and murderous in the use of other peoples" as well as being a member of "an extraordinary, lethal political culture" whose cruelties stand out in the "long annals of human barbarism." Turning to Goldhagen's book, the original quotes are as follows. Discussing Nazi Germany's cruelty towards Jewish and non-Jewish slaves, he wrote that "Germans WERE [emphasis added] generally brutal and murderous in the use of other peoples" (HWE, p315). Discussing the atmosphere in the Third Reich, he wrote that being ordinary in "the Germany that gave itself to Nazism" was to have been "a member of an extraordinary, lethal political culture" (HWE, p456). Discussing the barbarism of Nazi Germany, he wrote that in the "long annals of human barbarism," the cruelties inflicted "by Germans upon Jews during the Nazi period" stand out (HWE, p386). In each case, Birn has misquoted Goldhagen, pretending that he is stereotyping Germans in general when in fact he is only referring to the Nazi period. Since this is a representative sample of the essay's method - Goldhagen provides over a dozen pages of similar cases - I will waste no more space on it.

Norman G. Finkelstein's contribution is based on a conspiracy theory. In his original essay, this was clearly stated, but here it has been suppressed, for obvious reasons. According to Finkelstein, the field of Holocaust studies is "mainly a propaganda enterprise," so that "'The Holocaust' is in effect the Zionist account of the Nazi holocaust" (New Left Review, July/August, 1997, pp83-4). Moreover: "The only relationship Holocaust studies bears to serious scholarly inquiry is inverse" (Frankfurter Rundschau, August 22, 1997). Academic research into the Final Solution is a "Holocaust studies industry," which amounts to a "circus" (The Observer, January 18, 1998). No doubt these discoveries will be welcomed by neo-Nazis everywhere.

Many readers will be unaware that Finkelstein, far from being an academic historian, is a teacher of political theory who cannot speak or read German. Nor will readers be familiar with Goldhagen's devastating reply, exposing distortions, misrepresentations, selective quotations and outright inventions (Goldhagen, "The New Discourse of Avoidance," online).

Perhaps the most revealing insight into the essay's method is the subtle shift in argument which occurs whenever its falsifications are identified. Consider the treatment of Goldhagen's discussion of the 19th century Bavarian petition against civil rights for Jews. Finkelstein originally wrote that in order to document the extent of German antisemitism, Goldhagen "recalls a 'spontaneous, extremely broad-based, and genuine' petition campaign" in Bavaria, while hiding evidence to the contrary in his footnote (NLR, p48). But as Goldhagen pointed out, Finkelstein is attributing to him words which were in fact quoted from another historian, allowing Finkelstein to present the footnote qualifying the historian's words as a case of self-contradiction. So in this book the passage has been doctored as follows: "Quoting a scholarly study, Goldhagen recalls a 'spontaneous, extremely broad-based, and genuine' petition campaign" in Bavaria, while hiding evidence to the contrary in his footnote (ANOT, p21). Now that Goldhagen has exposed this sleight of hand, Finkelstein reverts to his original distortion, stating that Goldhagen's evidence "disputing HIS [emphasis added] textual claim" was buried in the book's back pages (Finkelstein, "Response to Goldhagen," online). Finkelstein defends the doctoring of his own text with the remark that Goldhagen must be unaware of the "normal scholarly practice" of "revising" a journal article for publication in a book.

Could any magician surpass these tricks?

Anything to make a buck.......2004-01-14

This ad hominum book is an attempt to white wash the German people who had the virus to murder these Jews and did it. Others, Poles, Ukrainians etc. contracted the disease, if you will, and the Holocaust was under way. It is of course very complicated and Goldhagen makes his arguments complicated, as they should be. To cite sources is allowable in historical writing I believe, but to conclude from these and many other sources is not what Goldhagen does; he leaves many doors open for exploration, exploration within the thesis that he supports with very firm evidence. This atrocity is no ordinary instance of mass murder; it has far reaching, ancient roots, links to powerful organized religions, pseudo- Western and Eastern cultures,socio- economics,philosophies of the most celebrated, Heidegger e.g., and an ideas of Christ that stem from the writings of the early Fathers of Christianity, and their interpretation of the Jews in the New Testament. This long problem of the Jews, this so-called evil people with their choseness gets superb, generous treatment by Professor Goldhagen. His discussion goes beyond sources, beyond the splitting of hairs over methods of interpretation according to the academy, which for decades has avoided and skimmed over and denied the Holocaust its place in any branch of life and practice.This crticism preens itself in front of Goldhagen's work as if this were a cocktail party debate in the faculty lounge. There is not a shred of compassion or an instance of reference to any suffering of these Jews in this book, with its artless center of whining and posing and avoiding the whole idea of evil. It is spirtiually and morally deadening. It repells with its insistance on winning. One reads these books all the time about the Holocaust now...disputing methodology and credibility. Daniel Goldhagen is not on trial here or his book; he knows what he is about in it and these authros do not know this, blinded by a desire for fame in the coprridors of their institutions.

Goldhagen has dared to call attention to it all, and in doing so draws out the low vibration people like Finkelstein who wouldn't have anyone to hear him if it weren't for Goldhagen's book. Finkelstein wouldn't have dared to attempt a piece on the Holocaust himself; he could not contain it , even a part of it in his angry head; Finkelstein is too shaken to deal with this subject as it is; he is maybe too horrified at the truth that his academy, his world,could be at heart insane.This book and its authors..lost balls in the high grass.

Bravo, Professor Goldhagen

The "Goldhagen Thesis" Refuted........2003-11-15

Among the academically politically correct, a particularly noxious notion has been revised in the work of Daniel Goldhagen in his book _Hitler's Willing Executioners_. This is the racist idea of the "barbaric Hun", popular among the British and Allied forces in the "Great War". Like such precursors as Theodor Kaufman, writer of the notorious tract _Germany Must Perish!_, Goldhagen has revised the idea that the entire German nation was to blame for Hitler, all Germans being possessed of a crazed anti-Semitism. According to Goldhagen, it is the ordinary Germans who were the most bestial in their brutality towards the Jews (and of course Goldhagen focuses conveniently only on the Jews, arguing that the Holocaust of the Jews was a unique historical event without precedent, indeed outside of time). But, then according to Goldhagen, this mass madness was magically to disappear with the end of the war and the defeat of Hitler; indeed, the modern Germans are the very champions of liberty courtesy of the reconstitution of their nation with the help of the Allied forces. Fortunately, many of those who are not blinded by political correctness can see through the absurdity of this farce presented as historical thesis. In this book, two essays are presented which attempt to refute Goldhagen's thesis. The first is by Norman Finkelstein, himself a Jew and descended from survivors of the Holocaust. The second is by Ruth Bittina Birn, another expert on the historical tragedy which subsisted in the Third Reich. Both essays attempt to show through actually examining the historical record the house of cards which the Goldhagen thesis proves to be. Upon closer examination it becomes apparent that many of the German officers were not possessed by madness but indeed looked upon their activities as part of a disgusting, albeit necessary, part of the war bureaucracy. In addition, like most who focus on the Holocaust, the role of other social groups persecuted by Hitler and later by the communists who were to seize control of half of Germany after the war is totally ignored by Goldhagen. Finkelstein brings out some interesting points in comparing various historical tragedies including many which exist in modern America and within the modern world with those that occurred during World War II. Indeed, so much has been made of the horrendous events which occurred during this war that it has become difficult to discern the truth, from the haze. Goldhagen represents an unfortunate turn in revisionist scholarship, attempting to swamp the American public with yet more horrendous tales of Holocaust attrocities. Yet, while this occurs the attrocities of the communists (particularly under Stalin, far greater than those of Hitler and his regime) are entirely ignored by academic scholarship (if not outright denied). Why is this? Perhaps it is just a further indication of the kind of rabid political correctness that exists among the revisionist left which holds such sway in academia. While both Norman Finkelstein and Ruth Bittina Birn are both leftists of a different sort, their essays do make some valuable points about the need for historical truth. Unfortunately, they both seem to be under the spell that Hitler's Reich was a "right wing regime", even though such a regime did contain many leftist/collectivist elements. This is unfortunate; however, it remains a minor criticism in an otherwise well written refutation.

Excellent.......2003-07-19

Arguing that much of the Holocaust literature contains gross misinformation and sheer lies, Finkelstein provides an important insight into Goldhagen's insidious attempt to distort historical facts. According to Finkelstein, Goldhagen's book is characterized by numerous contradictions, exaggerations and serious misrepresentation of the facts. For example, Goldhagen asserts in his book that all Germans were belligerent anti-semitists who when given the chance tortured every Jew they could come across. This of course is a gross overgeneralization given that the majority of serious historians agree that many Germans did not commit any enormities against Jewish people. Having said that, Finkelstein does not claim that they were not anti-semitists. On the contrary, many Germans were anti-semitists but they still chose not to take part in the extermination of Jews. Goldhagen however asserts that being a passive observer automatically makes you a perpetrator who is as guilty as the person committing the actual atrocities. If this is the case, then most people are perpetrators because we all sometimes witness heinous crimes and gross injustices not being able to stop them. Goldhagen further holds that the Holocaust was a unique event. Note that a unique event must contain unique victims. Thus, according to Goldhagen, Jews were unique victims. What about the gypsies who were murdered during the Holocaust? Why aren't they the unique victims? Why aren't they included in the history books? Distorting the history in this cynical way as Goldhagen does is morally reprehensible. Not all Germans actively participated in the Holocaust. Blaiming the entire nation is preposterous and indicative of spurious scholarship.

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