An Unfinished History

The Holocaust

'This vital history shatters many myths about the Nazi genocide . . . . surprising . . . provocative . . . fizzes with ideas. Even if you think you know the subject, you'll probably find something here to make you think' Sunday Times 
'Erudite...remarkable' The Observer 
'Outstanding' The Telegraph 
 
An authoritative, revelatory new history of the Holocaust, from one of the leading scholars of his generation 
 
The Holocaust is much-discussed, much-memorialized and much-portrayed. But there are major aspects of its history that have been overlooked. 
 
Spanning the entirety of the Holocaust and across the world, this sweeping history deepens our understanding. Dan Stone reveals how the idea of 'industrial murder' is incomplete: many were killed where they lived in the most brutal of ways. He outlines the depth of collaboration across Europe, arguing persuasively that we need to stop thinking of the Holocaust as an exclusively German project. He also considers the nature of trauma the Holocaust engendered, and why Jewish suffering has yet to be fully reckoned with. And he makes clear that the kernel to understanding Nazi thinking and action is genocidal ideology, providing a deep analysis of its origins. 
 
Drawing on decades of research, The Holocaust: An Unfinished History upends much of what we think we know about the Holocaust. Stone draws on Nazi documents, but also on diaries, post-war testimonies and even fiction, urging that, in our age of increasing nationalism and xenophobia, we must understand the true history of the Holocaust.

This vital history shatters many myths about the Nazi's genocide . . . Drawing on the latest scholarship in English and German, Stone's brisk, energetic book fizzes with ideas. Indeed, even if you think you know the subject, you'll probably find something here to make you think . . . surprising . . . provocative . . . an excellent book

Relays many carefully chosen and deeply haunting stories... an engaging and accessible read that never hurries or shields the reader from its dark subject matter... outstanding

A timely corrective to a shifting narrative ... erudite ... this remarkable book offers both a narrative overview and an analysis of the events, challenging many common assumptions and often returning to how this terrible history remains "unfinished"... a brisk, compelling and scholarly account of the Nazi genocide and its aftermath. But never for one moment does it let us believe that the events are now safely in the past

Deep insights into horror... drawing on his extensive own research and a vast range of work by historians from across the last eight decades, Stone sets about showing how our mental picture of the Holocaust is dangerously wrong.... his own passion for his subject and its importance is compelling, as is his willingness to confront both moral and historical questions... the breadth of Stone's work across borders and languages shines through... a vital and provocative book

A holocaust history for our times, passionate as well as scholarly, and written with a sharp eye to the growing threat of the radical right in the present. Stone is not afraid to question the verities that have become attached to this most catastrophic epoch of modern history, and he challenges readers to confront its scope and enormity anew

Jane Caplan, Emeritus Professor of European History, University of Oxford

A brilliant study, lucid, powerful, moving, and full of original insights. Few general studies of the Holocaust have so successfully integrated the international, indeed global, dimensions of the Nazi genocide and its aftermath

A candid, historically rooted, and timely account of the Holocaust and its many consequences . . . troubling and thought-provoking for a world in which post-war certainties are now dissolving. It deserves the widest possible readership

A stunning, original, concise analysis, culling the latest research and the most observant eyewitness accounts of the time. The parallels to fascism today are extremely unsettling. Stone analyzes the latest research on the thousands of persecution sites that turned Europe into a continent of camps; he explains the mystical power of Nazi racial antisemitism and he grants the aftermath history of displacement, trauma and reckonings the fuller treatment it merits. Few scholars could write this masterful synthesis and even fewer would take on a closer examination of its darkest features and unsettling questions about the broader significance of Holocaust education today

Illuminating ... Dan Stone demonstrates the important role played by locals ... He writes with authority and an eye for the human story not always evident in Holocaust historiography

One of the best new publications presenting more complicated narratives of the Holocaust ... Dan Stone's The Holocaust: An Unfinished History, is an outstanding survey that updates the history of the European genocide of the Jews in a thought-provoking and informative way ... powerful

Significant… A painfully revealing, vital history

Thought-provoking, a present-day reckoning ... an important and challenging work

The Holocaust is very much open to further research and Dan Stone is well placed to provide an informed overview, having spent decades immersed in this subject. He is extremely well read, and ... is no dry academic: he is determined to ensure that the brutality of the violence and the suffering of the victims are conveyed vividly, with emotive quotations ... a powerful survey

Suprising… timely… a concise and accessible history that extends beyond the death camps

A book that turns on their head some of the widely-held notions about that terrible era of genocide 80 years ago

Excellent and engrossing ... this is a history with empathy, insight and depth at its core, all backed up by brave analysis ... This is a vital and provocative book, impressively covering a seismic event in little more than 300 pages, making it accessible to the general reader as well as those in academia

An incisive analysis of the genocidal endgame that unfolded from Nazi antisemitism in the early 20th century

Stone's new book is as up-to-date an overview as you are likely to find ... he presents a strong argument that the Holocaust should be understood as the result of ideological beliefs [and] ... illuminates with great sympathy and insight a history of continuing suffering and prejudice ... This is an outstanding book: well written, deeply felt, always perceptive and exhibiting considerable knowledge of decades of Holocaust scholarship. It will become the standard work in English on the subject for some time to come

Stone's deeply humane account draws on an array of testimonies from some of the most observant and perceptive victims, and he uses these to devastating effect ... a well-written history of the Holocaust and its aftermath, with accomplished use of eyewitness accounts ... Dan Stone remains an important and eloquent voice in the field of Holocaust studies

A timely study of the holocaust that indicates the dangers of selectively misremembering it ... vital ... offers a detailed examination of the many roots of Nazism

Instead of presenting Holocaust history as a tidy affair wrapped in a bow with neat moral messages, Stone proposes that we examine its unfinishedness, its unknowability, and its very incompleteness… confronts uncomfortable truths

Dan Stone is Professor of Modern History and Director of the Holocaust Research Institute at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is the author or editor of numerous academic articles and books, including Histories of the Holocaust and The Liberation of the Camps.

The Holocaust is much-discussed, much-memorialized and much-portrayed. But there are major aspects of its history that have been overlooked. 
 
Spanning the entirety of the Holocaust and across the world, this sweeping history deepens our understanding. Dan Stone reveals how the idea of 'industrial murder' is incomplete: many were killed where they lived in the most brutal of ways. He outlines the depth of collaboration across Europe, arguing persuasively that we need to stop thinking of the Holocaust as an exclusively German project. He also considers the nature of trauma the Holocaust engendered, and why Jewish suffering has yet to be fully reckoned with. And he makes clear that the kernel to understanding Nazi thinking and action is genocidal ideology, providing a deep analysis of its origins. 
 
Drawing on decades of research, The Holocaust: An Unfinished History upends much of what we think we know about the Holocaust. Stone draws on Nazi documents, but also on diaries, post-war testimonies and even fiction, urging that, in our age of increasing nationalism and xenophobia, we must understand the true history of the Holocaust.

Dan Stone

The history that Dan Stone tells here shows human beings at their very worst. Unlike the German 'scientific' cleansing of the race, Stone shows that the Romanian genocide was messy, corrupt, and unimaginably violent. This is a narrative until now too little understood, but it is also a reminder of how swiftly societies can descend to lethal racial discrimination. There are important lessons here for Europe today

Romania, 1940-1944

Romania’s role in the Holocaust was a complex and terrible one, overlooked in comparison to the rest of Europe and only now being reckoned with. 
 
Dan Stone's remarkable new book tells the full story of Romania in the dark period during the Second World War, from when it joined the Axis powers until it switched sides in 1944. As a country with a large Jewish population and several other notable minority groups, the survival of almost half of this population has led many to infer that Romania had a milder attitude when compared to the Final Solution in German-held territories. But this obscures the extraordinary ferocity, particularly in occupied Transnistria (today's Ukraine), with which Romanian soldiers and civilians murdered their Jewish citizens. Drawing on a wide range of sources from perpetrators and victims, Stone sheds new light on the Eastern Front during the Second World War, as well as revealing the little-known aftermath of the Holocaust in Communist Romania. 
 
Enlightening and shocking, The Forgotten Holocaust makes a lasting and important contribution to our understanding of the history of twentieth-century Europe.

Dan Stone

Books by Dan Stone

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