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Modernity and the holocaust

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14 Reviews
Cornell University Press, 1989 - Philosophy - 267 pages
A new afterword to this edition, "The Duty to Remember—But What?" tackles difficult issues of guilt and innocence on the individual and societal levels. Zygmunt Bauman explores the silences found in debates about the Holocaust, and asks what the historical facts of the Holocaust tell us about the hidden capacities of present-day life. He finds great danger in such phenomena as the seductiveness of martyrdom; going to extremes in the name of safety; the insidious effects of tragic memory; and efficient, "scientific" implementation of the death penalty. Bauman writes, "Once the problem of the guilt of the Holocaust perpetrators has been by and large settled . . . the one big remaining question is the innocence of all the rest—not the least the innocence of ourselves."Among the conditions that made the mass extermination of the Holocaust possible, according to Bauman, the most decisive factor was modernity itself. Bauman's provocative interpretation counters the tendency to reduce the Holocaust to an episode in Jewish history, or to one that cannot be repeated in the West precisely because of the progressive triumph of modern civilization. He demonstrates, rather, that we must understand the events of the Holocaust as deeply rooted in the very nature of modern society and in the central categories of modern social thought.

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Review: Modernity and the Holocaust

User Review  - Veronika - Goodreads

It was nice, sometimes all the same all the time :) Read full review

Review: Modernity and the Holocaust

User Review  - Jeff - Goodreads

Bauman's writing style can be lengthy at times. The organization of the book could have been better, and main points are also revisited from nearly the same angle which makes some sections feel ... Read full review

All 11 reviews »

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References from web pages

Book - ZYGMUNT BAUMAN - Modernity and the Holocaust
The Polity book catalogue page for ZYGMUNT BAUMAN, Modernity and the Holocaust.
www.polity.co.uk/ book.asp?ref=0745609309

JSTOR: Modernity and the Holocaust.
Modernity and the Holocaust. By Zygmunt Bauman. Ithaca, ny: Cor- nell University Press, 1989. Pp. xiv + 224. $29.95. Moishe Postone University of Chicago ...
links.jstor.org/ sici?sici=0002-9602(199203)97%3A5%3C1521%3AMATH%3E2.0.CO%3B2-F

6. Mary Lowenthal Felstiner: Women, Modernity and the Holocaust
What the Holocaust is, sociologist Zygmunt Bauman claims in his book Modernity and the Holocaust, is the ultimate test of modernity: ...
www.remember.org/ educate/ fels.html

Modernity and the Holocaust
Modernity and the Holocaust, pp. x, 33. Bartov, Murder. in. Our. Midrt, pp. 17,56,60,66176-. Such. arguments share with conservative intellectuals ...
www.blackwell-synergy.com/ doi/ abs/ 10.1111/ j.1467-8497.1997.tb01398.x

Modernity and the Holocaust by Zygmunt Bauman | librarything
All about Modernity and the Holocaust by Zygmunt Bauman. librarything is a cataloging and social networking site for booklovers.
www.librarything.com/ work/ 92524

antisemitism, holocaust and modernity
He alludes to his own family experience in a book entitled "Modernity and the Holocaust".13 Bauman is of course not alone in attacking the Enlightenment ...
sicsa.huji.ac.il/ modernity.html

Reviews : Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust (Polity ...
Automatic download [Begin manual download]. Downloading the PDF version of: Thesis Eleven Rechter 34 (1): 196. (558K) ...
the.sagepub.com/ cgi/ reprint/ 34/ 1/ 196?ck=nck

SCOLAR Learning Environment - Holocaust MA
Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust 2nd ed, (Oxford: Polity Press/Blackwell, 1993) and selections from Gillian Rose, Judaism and Modernity (Oxford: ...
www.rhul.ac.uk/ scolar/ holocaust-ma/ syllabus/ options-post-holocaust-philosophy.html

Bryan Cheyette - Liberal Anti-Judaism and the Victims of Modernity ...
Even a glance at one or two books in this area--Bauman's Modernity and the Holocaust, Gillian Rose's Judaism and Modernity (1993), and the interventions of ...
muse.jhu.edu/ journals/ american_literary_history/ v013/ 13.3cheyette.html

Information and Technology in the Holocaust
In Modernity and the Holocaust , Zygmunt Bauman asserts that information technology was not available at the time of the Nazi Genocide of the Jews: ...
www2.iath.virginia.edu/ holocaust/ infotech.html

About the author (1989)

Zygmunt Bauman is one of the most significant global social thinkers of our age. His work, spanning nearly five decades, steadfastly refuses to be constrained by arbitrary disciplinary boundaries within the arts, humanities and social sciences. An extraordinarily productive scholar, his writings continue to be relevant to his host subject of sociology, but also to social and political theory, philosophy, ethics, art theory, media/communications studies, cultural studies, and theology.

Bibliographic information

QR code for Modernity and the holocaust
TitleModernity and the holocaust
ContributorZygmunt Bauman
Editionreprint
PublisherCornell University Press, 1989
ISBN0801487196, 9780801487194
Length267 pages
Subjects ›  › 

History / Europe / General
Philosophy / History & Surveys / General
Social Science / Sociology / General
  
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