Microhistories of the Holocaust
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11479212 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Christopher Dillon (King's College London, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 37 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 129-131 |
| Publication date | 2019-02-11 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | German History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0266-3554 • E-ISSN: 1477-089X |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/gerhis/ghy096 |
| OpenAlex | W2896703206 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
This volume, which brings together seventeen Holocaust scholars at different stages of their careers, is the product of a large conference held in Paris in 2012. Edited by two specialists on the microhistory of the Holocaust in France, the contributions demonstrate the potential for local histories to add detail to our apprehension of the Nazi genocide and to fine-tune existing interpretations at the macrohistorical level. Every single article is interesting and adds to historical knowledge. But the conceptual framing is somewhat disappointing. We can readily agree with the editors’ proposition that ‘[r]educing the level of analysis increases knowledge’ (p. 3) and still wonder how this is an intellectually productive insight. Are we returning to antiquarian conceptions of history as mere reconstruction of the past? What is the relationship between historical detail and interpretation? To what extent can lived experiences be recovered from the sources typically available to historians? Remarkably, the editors’ introduction declines even to consider the limitations of microhistory as an approach. These have, of course, sparked lively debate in the historiography of Germany and the ‘history of everyday life’ (Alltagsgeschichte). The volume’s contributors, too, generally offer little substantive methodological reflection and appear to assume that the virtue of detail and description is self-evident. This is a missed opportunity to connect scholarship on the Nazi genocide, already unhelpfully sequestered in the bureaucratic category of Holocaust Studies, with broader historiographical practice.
Art · Epistemology · Genocide · Historiography · Literature · Microhistory · Nazism · Political science · Politics · Scholarship · Sociology · The Holocaust · European history and politics · History · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Law · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 0.38 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2018 - 2021 (4) |
| Highly cited | No |