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Indlæser... Eichmann and the Holocaustaf Hannah Arendt
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Bliv medlem af LibraryThing for at finde ud af, om du vil kunne lide denne bog. Der er ingen diskussionstråde på Snak om denne bog. An excellent and detailed description of the trial of Adolf Eichmann, probably the most prominent and well-known figure behind the Holocaust. Arendt's description of the thinking of the war criminal amplifies the character of the man who felt no remorse, no shame over what he had done. She describes vividly the psychology of a narcissist whose only motivations are how he is perceived by others, his only regrets centering around himself and his aims and not around anymore code or remorse for what he did. Arendt's writing style can be difficult. I found myself often wishing to re-write many of her sentences, breaking them down into more manageable and easily followed lengths. Her use of multiple dependent clauses and frequent parenthetical explanations could easily have been better edited for a more readable style. In spite of this, however, the book itself tells a vivid story free of judgmentalism and pontification. "Nothing's as hot when you're eating it as when it's cooking." The failure of that piece of conventional wisdom to predict the Holocaust, to predict the way things actually went down, cuts to the awful core of what those men--bad men, but not monsters, because that lets us all off the hook (how terrifying is it to speculate that some of them may even have been good men?)--did in the same way that Eichmann the man, the cliche-spouter, the bureaucrat, the banal evildoer, does. This happened because of our ability to keep going--to filter out, to play through, to overcome and triumph. It happened because millions of regular Germans kept their heads down and focused on what they could comprehend, not the enormity before which words fail. The capacity to reduce existence to platitudes--"just doing my job", "there's a war on", "Elders of Zion", "it's worse in Russia"--is the only way you can reconcile the obvious human drives toward altruism and cooperation with the Final Solution. Sometimes it feels like platitudes are also the only way we can understand it, and we should quit trying to stain the silence with words. But Arendt's words show us just how culpable we all are--and that's vital. This is a collection of excerpts from the complete Eichmann in Jerusalem: The Banality of Evil, and I don't know why you wouldn't just read the whole thing, but Eichmann and the Holocaust is still a great book. In her own words: "And just as you supported and carried out a policy of not wanting to share the earth with the Jewish people and the people of a number of other nations - as though you and your superiors had any right to determine who should and who should not inhabit the world - we find that no one, that is, no member of the human race, can be expected to want to share the earth with you. This is the reason, and the only reason, you must hang." A truly memorable book. So sad . . . ingen anmeldelser | tilføj en anmeldelse
Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are. Inspired by the trial of a bureaucrat who helped cause the Holocaust, this radical work on the banality of evil stunned the world with its exploration of a regime's moral blindness and one man's insistence that he be absolved all guilt because he was 'only following orders'. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Indlæser... GenrerMelvil Decimal System (DDC)940.5318092History and Geography Europe Europe 1918- World War II Social, political, economic history; Holocaust Holocaust History, geographic treatment, biography Holocaust victims biographies and autobiographiesLC-klassificeringVurderingGennemsnit:
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Arendt's writing style can be difficult. I found myself often wishing to re-write many of her sentences, breaking them down into more manageable and easily followed lengths. Her use of multiple dependent clauses and frequent parenthetical explanations could easily have been better edited for a more readable style. In spite of this, however, the book itself tells a vivid story free of judgmentalism and pontification.
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