Tom Stammers has 2 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 1 narrator. The most-rated is A Macat Analysis of Christopher R. Browning's Ordinary Men.
A Macat Analysis of Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners
Summary
American author Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's 1996 work, Hitler's Willing Executioners, is one of the most controversial history books of modern times. While most historians have sought to explain the horror of the Holocaust by focusing on Nazi leaders and their ideologies, Goldhagen set out to investigate whether ordinary Germans enthusiastically embraced their goals. His conclusion: "eliminationist anti-Semitism" - a genocidal hatred of Jews unique to Germany - caused the Holocaust. Hitler's Willing Executioners topped best-seller lists in Britain, Germany, and America and won prestigious awards. But historians almost universally disagreed with Goldhagen's arguments, which ran counter to those of Christopher Browning in his 1992 book, Ordinary Men. Browning examined members of a police unit who carried out acts of genocide and found that regular people acted out of fear and as a result of peer pressure. A ferocious historical dispute raged between partisans of the two authors. This Goldhagen Controversy, as it became known, proved to be one of the most significant debates of the 1990s.
©2016 Macat Inc (P)2016 Macat Inc
A Macat Analysis of Christopher R. Browning's Ordinary Men
Summary
Ordinary Men is one of the most influential works on the Holocaust. Before US historian Browning's 1992 book, most Holocaust scholarship focused either on the experience of the victims or on the Nazi political ideology driving the slaughter. Browning investigates the stories of some who carried out acts of extreme violence, those who literally had blood on their hands. Who were they? What were their backgrounds? And how could they end up committing such unspeakable acts? Browning focuses on one unexceptional regiment of German reservists, Police Battalion 101, carefully reconstructing the men's personalities. While their orders to kill appalled them at first, Browning shows how a combination of reluctance to challenge authority and peer pressure enabled them to face their gruesome task. These men were not driven by ideology. Rather than being moral monsters, Browning insists they were simply "ordinary men." While some have criticized Browning's relentless focus on the individual, Ordinary Men is nonetheless an essential work for anybody who wants to understand the Holocaust.
©2016 Macat Inc (P)2016 Macat Inc