Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It?
By Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman, with a foreward by Arthur Hertzberg. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. Pp. xviii, 312. $27.50.) This work, as its title implies, investigates the shadowy world of “Holocaust denial,” examining the individuals and institutions responsible for the dissemination of “Holocaust revisionism,” as well as analyzing the motives of the self-labeled “revisionists.” Those who explore this topic generally tend to dismiss “revisionists” summarily, arguing that subjecting “revisionism” to scholarly critique and scrutiny might thereby legitimize it. Denying History sets itself apart from most literature in this expanding genre by presenting a point-by-point rebuttal of the arguments advanced by “deniers” rather than dismissing “revisionist” claims out of hand or engaging in ad hominem attacks. By so doing, the authors reveal the specious and fallacious nature of the “revisionist” platform and demonstrate that through the analysis of a “convergence of
