Laurence Rees is a former Head of BBC TV History programmes and Creative Director of BBC Television History, for whom he wrote, directed and produced several award-winning series on the Second World War. He wrote the companion books that included Auschwitz, which won History Book of the Year at the British Book Awards. He holds honorary doctorates from the University of Sheffield and the Open University.
Anyone wanting a compelling, highly readable explanation of how and
why the Holocaust happened, drawing on recent scholarship and
impressively incorporating moving and harrowing interviews need
look no further than Laurence Rees's brilliant book
*Professor Ian Kershaw*
A masterpiece. Laurence Rees's best book yet . . . In compelling
prose, Rees tells the full story of the most shameful period in the
story of Mankind
*Andrew Roberts*
You might have thought that we know everything there is to know
about the Holocaust but this book proves there is much more...
*Daily Mail*
With The Holocaust he has set himself the task of writing an
accessible chronological account of the murder of six million Jews
in conditions of scarcely imaginable horror. He's done it
excellently. There is no shortage of books on the Holocaust but
Rees's stands out as a readable and authoritative exposition of how
and why it happened, and the barbarous methods by which it was
pursued. The amount of ground it covers in 500 pages is remarkable
- from the anti-Semitism of popular German literature of the 19th
century to Hitler's suicide and the surrender of his regime. It's
excellently written and skilfully interweaves narrative history,
sound interpretation and the recollections (through interviews,
listed in the notes as "previously unpublished testimony") of
survivors. Rees provides an exemplary account of how the greatest
crime in modern history came about.
*The Times*
Rees has distilled 25 years of research into this compelling study,
the finest single-volume account of the Holocaust. It is not a book
for the faint-hearted. Some of the first-hand testimony is both
shocking and heart-rending. Yet it has important things to say
about human nature - what our species is capable of doing if not
prevented by civilized laws - and demands to be read
*Telegraph*
This is by far the clearest book ever written about the Holocaust,
but also the best in explaining both its origins and grotesque
mentality, as well as its chaotic development
*Antony Beevor*
A fine book. Rees is a gifted educator, who can tell a complex
story with compassion and clarity, without sacrificing all
nuances...it comes alive through the voices of victims, killers and
bystanders.
*Guardian*
The interview material is largely compelling, always illuminating
and on occasion, very moving . . . Like all of Rees's work, it is
accurate and carefully researched
*New Statesman*
Absorbing, heart-breaking...he has drawn skilfully on speeches,
documents and diaries of the Third Reich, and on the vast library
of secondary literature, to weave together a powerful, inevitably
harrowing revelation of the 20th century's greatest crime
*Sunday Times*
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