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From Library Journal
As an expert witness for the defense in last year's Irving-Lipstadt trial, Evans (history, Cambridge Univ.) was charged with determining whether David Irving was, as Deborah Lipstadt asserted, a Holocaust denier. Evans spent two years researching Irving's work, tracing his sources, and then evaluating his publications and public speeches. Moving easily from analysis of Irving's abuse of primary documents to a discussion of what constitutes legitimate historical methodology, Evans presents compelling proof that Irving is a Holocaust denier and why he should not be considered a legitimate member of the historical profession. Evans's depiction of the trial and of Irving's behavior in court is followed by an assessment of the implications of the judgment in Lipstadt's favor. Evans's point that some commentators seemed to forget that it was Irving who was attempting to silence Lipstadt, rather than academic historians and "Jewish interest groups" attempting to stifle free speech, is well worth remembering. Evans eloquently argues that what was really on trial was history itself. Fortunately, history won. Ironically, Evans's carefully documented book has not yet been published in the U.K., as Irving's threats to bring a libel suit have already caused one company to drop publication. Highly recommended. Frederic Krome, Jacob Rader Marcus Ctr. of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
When Deborah Lipstadt's Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory (1993), a groundbreaking book about the disturbing movement to refute the reality of the Holocaust, was published, one of the writers identified as a Holocaust denier, the Englishman David Irving, sued Lipstadt and her publisher, Penguin, for libel. Although Irving never earned a degree, he has written nearly 30 books about Hitler and other related subjects. His contention, therefore, was that Lipstadt had denigrated his work as a historian by accusing him of distorting the historical record to support his extreme anti-Semitic politics. The defense had to prove that Irving, in fact, had deliberately misrepresented the contents of relevant documents to conform to his sympathetic view of Hitler and his belief that nothing on the order of genocide occurred under Nazi rule. Evans, a Cambridge-based historian who specializes in modern German history, was retained by the defense as an expert witness, and he chronicles his arduous research effort with impressive lucidity. At question was the very bedrock of history: Is there such a thing as historical objectivity? Or, as Evans writes, "How do we know when a historian is telling the truth? . . . Wasn't it all a matter of interpretation?" Sensitive to these conundrums and the high emotional valence attached to the Holocaust, Evans was scrupulous in his examination of thousands of pages of documents, assiduously evaluating Irving's interpretation of such primary sources as Goebbels' diaries, always on the lookout for evidence of inaccuracies and bias. He found plenty, and he describes his discoveries with quiet and contagious excitement. By sharing his vast insider's knowledge and recounting his surreal experiences on the stand as Irving, who represented himself, conducted his chaotic cross-examinations, Evans enables readers to fully appreciate the significance of both Lipstadt's victory and Irving's exposure as exactly what he claimed not to be. There is such a thing as truth, and history, responsibly practiced, will reveal it. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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What is historical objectivity? Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
6 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Let's think about this for a moment,
By
This review is from: Lying About Hitler (Paperback)
As far as I can tell, most of the negative reviews could easily have been writted by people who simply objected to a summary description of the book, even if that isn't the case. They all bemoan the silencing of someone who would "dare" to reexamine the official version of historical events. It seems that these people keep missing a rather obvious point. Irving was the PLAINTIFF in the trial, NOT THE DEFENDANT. No one put Irving on trial; rather, Irving was trying to destroy the career of a person who had dared to doubt HIS version of Holocaust events. So all of those reviews complaining that this book is yet another attempt to silence an historian who breaks from the official line are totally missing the point: it was Irving who was attempting to silence academic discourse. Which makes most of the defenses of him shown in these reviews completely moot. Had Irving respected the right of others to disagree with him, even to very vocally and bitterly disagree with him, his career would be intact and this book would never have been written. And to the reviewer who claimed that Evans only wrote the book to make money: How, exactly, do you think academics earn their living?
4.0 out of 5 stars
A necessary companion to "Denying the Holocaust",
This review is from: Lying About Hitler (Paperback)
Richard Evans, Professor of Modern History at Cambridge and a specialist in modern German history, was one of the expert witnesses for the defense in the libel trial brought by controversial "historian" David Irving against Penguin Books and author Deborah Lipstadt over her portrayal of Irving as a Holocaust denier in her book "Denying the Holocaust." For those unfamiliar with his work, Irving has long painted himself as an expert in primary Nazi sources and has utilized these sources in a series of bestselling histories of the period of WWII. However, while claiming to be an exponent of what he refers to as "Real History," Irving has systematically distorted Nazi documentation and the testimony of witnesses to suggest first that Hitler was not responsible for the Holocaust, and, more recently, that the Holocaust was mostly accidental, the majority of deaths in the camps, according to Irving, being caused by disease. Irving's works and his relationships with other Holocaust deniers was briefly covered in Lipstadt's important book, causing Irving, for reasons of his own, to bring a libel action against Lipstadt and her publisher in an effort to get her book withdrawn from sale in the United Kingdom. To put it mildly, the attempt blew up in Irving's face, and Evans tells the story of his own research and, more briefly, the trial, in this worthwhile book.Called upon by the defense to produce an expert witness brief on Irving's work, Evans wisely began with Irving's first published book, which covered the Allied bombing of Dresden. Irving's supporters claim that his earlier work was untainted by his apparent Nazi sympathies, but Evans was able to prove that even in the mid 1960s Irving was more than willing to distort evidence to suggest that the death toll at Dresden was exponentially greater than the real toll revealed by German records - something around 35,000 rather than the "100,000 - 250,000" claimed by Irving. His analysis of Irving's later books is even more scathing. Evans' discussion of the trial is brief but both interesting and revealing, particularly when Irving deferentially addresses the judge as "Mein Fuhrer," a Freudian slip of truly classic proportions. Disturbingly, Evans also reveals that there are conservative historians who actually still promote Irving as a reputable historian, in spite of the utter demolition of his work and reputation at the trial, one of them being Sir John Keegan. Keegan does not exactly cover himself with glory here, particularly when he dismisses Lipstadt's book as being "politically correct," the tired buzzword the right wing trots out to defame anything they don't agree with. How an historian of Keegan's repute could belittle Lipstadt's book is beyond me and has truly left me doubting Keegan's own agenda. Another supporter of Irving is the historian Donald Cameron Watt, who proclaimed that the only people who would disagree that Irving is a reputable historian are "those who identify with the victims of the Holocaust." I would suggest to Professor Cameron and to Keegan that we should all of us, whatever our political views, "identify with the victims of the Holocaust." To not identify with the innocent victims of this horror is to deny and belittle historical truth, a truth both of these gentlemen claim to serve. All in all, a necessary sequel to Lipstadt's book and well worth your time.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Vivid in its message,
By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Lying About Hitler (Paperback)
Written by Richard J. Evans, the author of "In Defense of History" (and the chief historical advisor for the defense of an author that Holocaust denier David Irving once sued for libel), Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, And The David Irving Trial is a first-hand look at how the David Irving trial was in effect a trial of History itself. Vivid in its message that there remains a most vociferous contingent of those who would minimize the abominable slaughter of the Holocaust and seek to exonerate Hitler, and meticulous in its presentation of the unvarnished and genocidal truth that must always be remembered, Lying About Hitler is highly recommended for Holocaust studies reference shelves and especially suggested reading for anyone who must deal with insidious attempts to suppress, minimize, or otherwise distort the horrific history of the Holocaust.
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