|
The World Hitler Never Made: Alternate History and the Memory of Nazism (New Studies in European History): Alternate History and the Memory of Nazism (New Studies in European History)
|
| List Price: | £27.00 |
| Price: | £11.76 |
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Dispatched from and sold by the_book_depository
41 new or used available from £10.61
Average customer review:
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #236096 in Books
- Published on: 2005-05-23
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 536 pages
Editorial Reviews
Evening Standard, July 11, 2005
A shrewd and balanced appraisal - Robert Harris
Synopsis
What if the Nazis had triumphed in the Second World War? What if Adolf Hitler had escaped Berlin for the jungles of Latin America in 1945? Gavriel Rosenfeld's pioneering study explores why such counterfactual questions on the subject of Nazism have proliferated in recent years within Western popular culture. Examining a wide range of novels, short stories, films, television programmes, plays, comic books, and scholarly essays that have appeared in Great Britain, the United States, and Germany since 1945, Rosenfeld shows how the portrayal of historical events that never happened reflects the evolving memory of the Third Reich's real historical legacy. He concludes that the shifting representation of Nazism in works of alternate history, as well as the popular reactions to them, highlights their subversive role in promoting the normalization of the Nazi past in Western memory.
Customer Reviews
An interesting academic study of alternative history
Rosenfeld has created an interesting academic study of the fascination we have with the idea with "What if?" This books obviously focuses on the idea of if Hitler had won the war. More specifically; If Hitler had won the war (and also if Britain had made peace with Germany, if Hitler had escaped at the end of the war and various questions around the Holocaust.
As Rosenfeld himself points out these hypothetical questions can never be satisfactorily addressed because Germany lost the war, Hitler killed himself and the tragedy of the Holocaust did happen. But nonetheless these ideas do fascinate a large number of people and Rosenfeld brings together all the novels, programmes and films that have covered this idea, people like Harris, Turtledove and Deighton and numerous historians, and he examines their impact and how the portrayal of the Germans has shifted over the years.
An interesting study for anyone interested in this genre of fiction or modern history.
