Deborah Lipstadt est une éminente spécialiste de l'histoire juive moderne et de l'Holocauste, avec un intérêt particulier pour le phénomène du négationnisme de l'Holocauste. Son travail dissèque méticuleusement les arguments et les tactiques employés par les négationnistes, exposant rigoureusement leurs mensonges par une analyse historique convaincante. Au-delà de son engagement critique contre le négationnisme, Lipstadt explore également des questions cruciales sur l'identité juive et l'avenir de la communauté juive américaine dans des contextes sociaux plus larges. Son écriture se caractérise par un profond engagement envers l'exactitude historique, un raisonnement clair et une argumentation persuasive, rendant les sujets complexes accessibles à un large public.
In her acclaimed 1993 book Denying the Holocaust, Deborah Lipstadt called David Irving, a prolific writer of books on World War II, “one of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial.” The following year, after Lipstadt’s book was published in the United Kingdom, Irving filed a libel suit against Lipstadt and her publisher. She prepared her defense with the help of a first-rate team of solicitors, historians, and experts, and a dramatic trial unfolded. Denial, previously published as History on Trial, is Lipstadt’s riveting, blow-by-blow account of this singular legal battle, which resulted in a formal denunciation of a Holocaust denier that crippled the movement for years to come. Lipstadt’s victory was proclaimed on the front page of major news- papers around the world, such as The Times (UK), which declared that ‘history has had its day in court and scored a crushing victory.’”
In her acclaimed 1993 book Denying the Holocaust, Deborah Lipstadt called
putative WWII historian David Irving one of the most dangerous spokespersons
for Holocaust denial.
"The award-winning author of The Eichmann Trial and Denial: Holocaust History on Trial gives us a penetrating and provocative analysis of the hate that will not die, focusing on its current, virulent incarnations on both the political right and left, and on what can be done about it. When newsreels depicting the depredations of the Holocaust were shown in movie theaters to a horrified American public immediately after World War II, it was believed that the antisemitism that was part of the fabric of American culture in the 1920s and 1930s was finally going to be laid to rest. In the ensuing decades, Gregory Peck received an Academy Award for playing a journalist who passed as a Jew to blow the lid off genteel Jew hatred, clauses restricting where Jews could live were declared illegal, the KKK was pretty much litigated out of existence, and Joe Lieberman came within five electoral votes of becoming America's first Jewish vice president. And then the unthinkable began to happen. Over the last decade, there has been a noticeable uptick in antisemitic rhetoric and incidents by left-wing groups targeting Jewish students and Jewish organizations on American college campuses. Jews in countries throughout Europe have been attacked by terrorists. And the re-emergence of the white nationalist movement in America, complete with Nazi slogans and imagery, has brought to mind the fascist displays of the 1930s. Where is all this hatred coming from? Is there any significant difference between left-wing and right-wing antisemitism? What role has the anti-Zionist movement played? And what can be done to combat this latest manifestation of an ancient hatred? In a series of letters to an imagined college student and imagined colleague, both of whom are perplexed by this resurgence, Deborah Lipstadt gives us her own superbly reasoned, brilliantly argued, and sure-to-be-controversial responses to these troubling questions"-- Provided by publisher
The powerful and deeply disturbing book that was at the heart of the David Irving libel case, now dramatized in the film Denial. The denial of the Holocaust has no more credibility than the assertion that the Earth is flat. Yet there are those who insist that the death of six million Jews in Nazi concentration camps is nothing but a hoax perpetrated by a powerful Zionist conspiracy. For years those who made such claims were dismissed as harmless cranks operating on the lunatic fringe. But they have now begun to gain a hearing in respectable arenas. In this famous book, reissued now to coincide with the film based on the legal case it provoked, Denial, Deborah Lipstadt shows how--despite tens of thousands of witnesses and vast amounts of documentary evidence--this irrational idea not only has continued to gain adherents but has become an international movement, with 'independent' research centres, and official publications that promote a 'revisionist' view of recent history. Denying the Holocaust argues that this chilling attack on the factual record not only threatens Jews but has an unsuspected power to dramatically alter the way that truth and meaning are transmitted from one generation to another.
***NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD FINALIST (2012)*** Part of the Jewish Encounter series The capture of SS Lieutenant Colonel Adolf Eichmann by Israeli agents in Argentina in May of 1960 and his subsequent trial in Jerusalem by an Israeli court electrified the world. The public debate it sparked on where, how, and by whom Nazi war criminals should be brought to justice, and the international media coverage of the trial itself, was a watershed moment in how the civilized world in general and Holocaust survivors in particular found the means to deal with the legacy of genocide on a scale that had never been seen before. Award-winning historian Deborah E. Lipstadt gives us an overview of the trial and analyzes the dramatic effect that the survivors’ courtroom testimony—which was itself not without controversy—had on a world that had until then regularly commemorated the Holocaust but never fully understood what the millions who died and the hundreds of thousands who managed to survive had actually experienced. As the world continues to confront the ongoing reality of genocide and ponder the fate of those who survive it, this trial of the century, which has become a touchstone for judicial proceedings throughout the world, offers a legal, moral, and political framework for coming to terms with unfathomable evil. Lipstadt infuses a gripping narrative with historical perspective and contemporary urgency.
Kniha zaznamenává přípravy a průběh autorčina soudního procesu s Davidem Irvingem, kterého ve své předchozí knize Popírání holocaustu označila za propagátora popíračského hnutí. Irving požadoval omluvu, finančí náhradu a stažení knihy z prodeje, protože jej dehonestuje.
Z přebalu: Kniha Historie před soudem, dílem ananlýza historie, dílem výsledek pozorování dramatu v soudní síni, přesahuje historiografii druhé světové války a holocaustu a nastavuje zrcadlo špinavému způsobu, s jakým extremismus a záměrné zkreslování historie získávají široké uznání a pomáhají šířit nenávist. Inspirující osobní příběh úporné vytrvalosti a nakonec i nečekaného obrovského úspěchu je vlastně příběhem procesu testujícího normy historické a právní pravdy. Procesu, o kterém londýnský list Daily Telegraph prohlásil, že "znamená pro nové století to, co pro dřívější generace znamenal norimberský tribunál a proces s Eichmannem".
