The Holocaust and the Revival of Psychological History

Hughes focuses on how historians' efforts to grapple anew with actors' meanings, intentions, and purposes have prompted a return to psychoanalytically informed ways of thinking.

Judith M. Hughes (Author)

9781107056824, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 31 October 2014

208 pages
22.2 x 14.5 x 1.7 cm, 0.39 kg

'… a thought-provoking narrative about the way in which psychological questions have emerged in the Holocaust historiography, from the early post-war years until the twenty-first century.' Danae Karydaki, European History Quarterly

Why did men and women in one of the best educated countries in the Western world set out to get rid of Jews? In this book, Judith M. Hughes focuses on how historians' efforts to grapple anew with matters of actors' meanings, intentions, and purposes have prompted a return to psychoanalytically informed ways of thinking. Hughes makes her case with fine-grained analyses of books by Hugh Trevor-Roper, Ian Kershaw, Daniel Goldhagen, Saul Friedländer, Christopher Browning, Jan Gross, Hannah Arendt and Gitta Sereny. All of the authors pose psychological questions; the more astute among them shed fresh light on the Holocaust - without making the past any less disturbing.

1. Hitler
2. Nazi Germany and the Jews
3. Willing executioners
4. Examinations of conscience
5. A battle with truth
6. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Social, group or collective psychology [JMH], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], History [HB]