Product Description

A bestseller throughout Europe, the Middle East and the Americas, and already translated into sixteen languages, The holocaust Industry was hailed by the Guardian newspaper in London as "the most controversial book of the year" when it was originally published in 2000. in a devastating postscript for this second paperback edition, Norman G. Finkelstein documents the Holocaust industries scandalous cover-up of the blackmail of Swiss Banks, and in a new appendix demolishes the influential apologia for the Holocaust industry.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7541 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 286 pages

Review
"... its courageous attacks on the financial extortions of groups like the W[orld] J[ewish] C[ongress] are of great importance and, one hopes, will have an impact. Its strident tone, attacked by the books most hostile critics, strikes me as highly appropriate, especially given the author's careful sourcing of most of his claims." - Professor William Rubenstein, University of Wales "These fraudsters need to be unmasked, and Finkelstein believes that he is the man to do it. In 150 short pages he sets out to expose their machinations. If his indictment is a true one, it should prompt prosecutions, sackings, protest. The book shouts scandal. It is a polemic, communicated at maximum volume." - The Times "... Finkelstein has raised some important and uncomfortable issues ... examples cited ... can be breathtaking in their angry accuracy and irony." -- The Jewish Quarterly "Into this minefield, through which most have trodden perhaps a little too gingerly, has burst Norman Finkelstein, a Jew and self-professed iconoclast, heretic and enemy of the American-Jewish establishment - and he is lobbing grenades." - The Spectator "... a short, sharp and copiously noted polemic." - Times Higher Educational Supplement "Finkelstein is at his best when he skewers those who would sacralise the Holocaust." - Los Angeles Times Book Review "... his basic argument that the memories of the Holocaust are being debased is serious and should be given its due." - The Economist "The most explosive book of the year." - The Guardian "When I read Finkelstein's book, The Holocaust Industry, at the time of its appearance, I was in the middle of my own investigations of these matters, and I came to the conclusion that he was on the right track. I refer now to the part of the book that deals with the claims against the Swiss banks, and the other parts pertaining to forced labor. I would now say in retrospect that he was actually conservative, moderate and that his conclusions are trustworthy. He is a well-trained political scientist, has the ability to do the research, did it carefully, and has come up with the right results. I am by no means the only one who, in the coming months or years, will totally agree with Finkelstein's breakthrough" - Raul Hilberg comments on the first edition of The Holocaust Industry "... clever, explosive, sometimes even wryly funny." - Salon "This is, in short, a lucid, provocative and passionate book. Anyone with an open mind and an interest in the subject should ignore the critical brickbats and read what Finkelstein has to say." - New Statesman "... his allegations that some people are getting fat off the business sound plausible and, if he is prepared to back it up, worth saying." -Jewish Chronicle "He deserves to be heard... he is making some profound points that many younger and more thoughtful Jews have quietly been try to debate, but whose voices have been stilled by the establishment, particularly in the US." - Evening Standard "Finkelstein's downright pugilistic book delivers a wallop - mostly because few authors have had the courage of nerve to say, as he does, that the Nazi genocide has been distorted and robbed of its true moral lessons and instead has been put to use as 'an indispensable ideological weapon'. It's a provocative thesis that makes you want to reject it even as you are compelled to keep reading by the strength of his case and the bravura of his assertions." - LA Weekly "Finkelstein should be credited for writing a well-researched book that can help shut down the Holocaust Industry when the public becomes aware of its dishonesty and its vulgar exploitation of Jewish suffering." - Z Magazine "He is scathing in his denunciation of the institutions and individuals who have cropped up around the issue of reparations in the last several years." - New York Press "The reality of the Nazi holocaust remains. Memory can still enable us to recognise new victims, extend sensitivity and monitor signs of impending genocide. Books like The Holocaust Industry can help us if we let them." - Red Pepper

About the Author
Norman Finkelstein currently teaches political science at DePaul University. He is the author of Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict and (with Ruth Bettina Birn) A Nation on Trial, named a notable book for 1998 by the New York Times Book Review.

Customer Reviews

Fearless, authoritative and important
Until comparatively recently, I implicitly accepted the image of the holocaust and its victims that was presented by the mass media. Then, a year ago, I read the Penguin Book of Twentieth-century Speeches, in particular some of what Elie Weisel had to say about the holocaust.

It was clearly exaggerated, sentimentalist nonsense. I began to think a little more independently about the issue, but had nowhere to turn for a more balanced view.

One day, Amazon's recommendations system suggested this book to me, and I bought it at once. Having read it, I'm delighted to be able to recommend it unreservedly as exactly the book I needed.

Finkelstein does not deny the Nazi holocaust, nor the suffering it inflicted on both those it killed, and on those who survived. His contention - persuasively argued - is that their genuine suffering is being debased and abused by the Holocaust "industry" in order to bring political power and huge sums of money to an élite minority.

He also points out that by labelling the Holocaust with false superlatives, one belittles the plight of others who have suffered comparably awful genocide and victimisation, both in World War II and throughout history.

The book is well written. Finkelstein occasionally personalises the debate, or becomes less than dispassionate, but I never once felt this damaged his objectivity. He quotes sources throughout the book - in many cases his opponents are condemned by their own tongues.

It is time the media stopped pandering to the abusive interests of the Holocaust Industry, time they took a more balanced, more critical and less sensationalist view. Billions of dollars are being extorted from governments (even those that can hardly afford it, such as Poland's) by the playing of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism cards. This is unjust.

Buy this book. Read it. Tell your friends about it.

A profoundly troubling work both provocative and alarming.
With the exception of Noam Chomsky it has been a long time since anyone attempted a deconstruction of an American power elite along the lines of C. Wright Mill's famous study. The present author attempts to step into the breach. Finkelstein is concerned with the relationship between the collective American Jewish self image and how that image is mediated and bolstered through a plethora of devices (from compensation claims to educational trips)originating from the impact of the Nazi Holocaust. Many readers will wince at phrases such as 'organised American Jewry'and one from another source that 'Jews are better', as they have uncomfortable connotations in European life - on occasion I had to check myself from saying only a Jewish academic could make these points. Finkelstein's main arguments are (a) that American Jewry (or that aspect he portrays)has used the tragedy of the Holocaust as a means of morally, and on occasion even financially, terrorising critics into silence, (b) the 'uniqueness' of the Holocaust is to the contrary purely historically relative, and (c) that the suffering of nonJewsish victims of the Nazis has largely been set aside, especially when financial settlements are being pursued. His castigation of various Holocaust organisations as a cynical self serving 'industry' is unstinting, and his contrasting of the reception given to Jewish concerns by successive Administrations, in contrast to Black America's treatment, is grim reading. Finkelstein furnishes copious notes throughout the book, which are very useful. Two subcurrents emerge in the book which are never fully debated (and weaken its central theses to an extent). Firstly Finkelstein argues that 'organised American Jewry' has used the ethnicity of the Holocaust to put itself beyond criticism and inter alia Israel. All criticism of Jewish ideology is therefore antisemitic and one can never ask if antisemitism was/is in any way influenced by Jewish practices, i.e. antisemitism is really another expression of economic conflicts of interests. Finkelstein leaves this very contentious issue undeveloped and it is a definite weakness in the text. Secondly, he dismisses the uniqueness of the Holocaust, citing other exterminations that have occurred through history, yet he leaves unanalysed the motive for the Nazi extermination campaign deferring to Raul Hilburg's work instead. If the book is reprinted it would be helpful to have these issues examined clearly.

In conclusion I found this a very arresting book. Perhaps unnecessarily polemical in parts, but passionately argued. Confrontational and courageous yes, but arguably it needs more detail on the points above to substantiate its many charges. Essential reading for those on the Left and Right who really believe in a family of mankind where ethnicity has no role, except an accidental one.

The Holocaust Industry
The thrust of Professor Finkelstein's unsettling book is that powerful interests (Israel and Jewish organizations in America) have hijacked what has become known as the holocaust. And while Israel has exploited the holocaust as a weapon to deflect criticism, regardless how justified, American Jewish organizations have used the plight of supposedly needy survivors to extort staggering sums of money from the rest of the world. This was done not for the benefit of survivors, but for the financial advantage of these organizations.

There are no conclusions reached in Professor Finkelstein's book that a careful reader of daily newspapers could not have reached, assuming the reader could read between the lines and base his judgment on evidence and common sense rather than the politically correct slant of the media reporting...

The bottom line of Finkelstein's book is that it says what was very long overdue to be said. But few academics have the courage or intellectual fortitude to weather the defamation campaign that will predictably descend on anyone who challenges this multi-billion dollar industry...

I recommend the advice Nietzsche gave his readers 130 years ago: "If you want to know something about a book or its author, read what HE wrote rather than what his critics or enemies have to say about him."...