Holocaust in American life by Peter Novick 1999

Type :

Presentation

Pages :

9 pages

Format :

.pdf

Published date :

01/15/2009

Category :

Philosophy & literature

Sub category :

Literature

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Summary :

Introduction.
Analysis and explanation of the theories of Novick's book.
1. The purposes and the method.
2. Summary of the reasons of this evolution.
3. Conclusion of the book : Back to the theory of collective memory.
Commentaries.
1. Few weaknesses of the argumentation.
2. A book still supported amongst historians.
Sources.

Abstract

peter novick is a professor of History in the University of Chicago. After "The Noble Dream : The "objectivity Question" and the american Historical Profession" in 1988, in which he criticizes the idea of an ideal objective and neutral historical work, he published "The holocaust in the american life" in 1999, in which he explains and analysis of how the american discourse focused more and more on the holocaust, after a paradoxical period of silence about it. This book was a kind of illustration of his theory supported in his former book of how implied an historian can be in his work and point of view on the historical events. peter novick's willing of writing this book is born from "curiosity" as an historian and "skepticism" as a american and a Jew. But his opinion, different from the mainstream opinion about the sacred necessity of commemorating the holocaust, shows that it is above all the opinion of the historian peter novick that we get, and not the opinion of just any Jew or any american. The questions he asks in this book are why now, why here, or in other words, why so late, why so far?