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An Analysis of Christopher R. Browning's Ordinary Men Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland

An Analysis of Christopher R. Browning's Ordinary Men Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland

Of all the controversies facing historians today few are more divisive or more important than the question of how the Holocaust was possible. What led thousands of Germans – many of them middle-aged reservists with apparently little Nazi zeal – to willingly commit acts of genocide? Was it ideology? Was there something rotten in the German soul? Or was it – as Christopher Browning argues in this highly influential book – more a matter of conformity a response to intolerable social and psychological pressure? Ordinary Men is a microhistory the detailed study of a single unit in the Nazi killing machine. Browning evaluates a wide range of evidence to seek to explain the actions of the ordinary men who made up reserve Police Battalion 101 taking advantage of the wide range of resources prepared in the early 1960s for a proposed war crimes trial. He concludes that his subjects were not evil; rather their actions are best explained by a desire to be part of a team not to shirk responsibility that would otherwise fall on the shoulders of comrades and a willingness to obey authority. Browning's ability to explore the strengths and weaknesses of arguments – both the survivors' and other historians' – is what sets his work apart from other studies that have attempted to get to the root of the motivations for the Holocaust and it is also what marks Ordinary Men as one of the most important works of its generation. | An Analysis of Christopher R. Browning's Ordinary Men Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland

GBP 6.50
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An Analysis of Edward Said's Orientalism

An Analysis of Edward Said's Orientalism

Edward Said’s Orientalism is a masterclass in the art of interpretation wedded to close analysis. Interpretation is characterized by close attention to the meanings of terms by clarifying questioning definitions and positing clear definitions. Combined with one of the main sub-skills of analysis drawing inferences and finding implicit reasons and assumptions in arguments interpretation becomes a powerful tool for critical thought. In Orientalism the theorist critic and cultural historian Edward Said uses interpretation and analysis to closely examine Western representations of the “Orient” and ask what they are really doing and why. One of his central arguments is that Western representations of the East and Middle East persistently define it as “other” setting it up in opposition to the West. Through careful analysis of a range of texts and other materials Said shows that implicit assumptions about the “Orient’s” otherness underlie much Western thought and writing about it. Clarifying consistently the differences between the real-world East and the constructed ideas of the “Orient” Said’s interpretative skills power his analysis and provide the basis for an argument that has proven hugely influential in literary criticism philosophy and even politics. | An Analysis of Edward Said's Orientalism

GBP 6.50
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An Analysis of Keith Thomas's Religion and the Decline of Magic

An Analysis of Keith Thomas's Religion and the Decline of Magic

Keith Thomas's classic study of all forms of popular belief has been influential for so long now that it is difficult to remember how revolutionary it seemed when it first appeared. By publishing Religion and the Decline of Magic Thomas became the first serious scholar to attempt to synthesize the full range of popular thought about the occult and the supernatural studying its influence across Europe over several centuries. At root his book can be seen as a superb exercise in problem-solving: one that actually established magic as a historical problem worthy of investigation. Thomas asked productive questions not least challenging the prevailing assumption that folk belief was unworthy of serious scholarly attention and his work usefully reframed the existing debate in much broader terms allowing for more extensive exploration of correlations not only between different sorts of popular belief but also between popular belief and state religion. It was this that allowed Thomas to reach his famous conclusion that the advent of Protestantism – which drove out much of the superstition that characterised the Catholicism of the period – created a vacuum filled by other forms of belief; for example Catholic priests had once blessed their crops but Protestants refused to do so. That left farmers looking for other ways of ensuring a good harvest. It was this Thomas argues that explains the survival of what we now think of as magic at a time such beliefs might have been expected to decline – at least until science arose to offer alternative paradigms. | An Analysis of Keith Thomas's Religion and the Decline of Magic

GBP 6.50
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