Suchergebnisse

The ethics of professional historical practice in the United States, as traditionally understood, rested on a consensus about the purpose of historical scholarship, central to which were assumptions about the nature of historical facts, the relationship between facts and truth, and the social functions that factual and truthful historical accounts would perform. Over the past generation, these assumptions have come to be widely questioned, which has entailed the collapse of the consensus that sustained the traditional ethics of historical practice. The author suggests that rather than being deplorable, this represents a welcome development, making possible a more realistic understanding of the nature of historical scholarship.

Talking about the Holocaust has provided an international language for ethics, victimization, political claims, and constructions of collective identity. As part of a worldwide vocabulary, that language helps set the tenor of the era of globalization. This volume addresses manifestations of Holocaust-engendered global discourse by critically examining their function and inherent dilemmas, and the ways in which Holocaust-related matters still instigate public debate and academic deliberation. It contends that the contradiction between the totalizing logic of globalization and the assumed uniqueness of the Holocaust generates continued intellectual and practical discontent