Explaining Auschwitz and Hiroshima: Historians and the Second World War, 1945-1990

By Richard J.B. Bosworth

Book Overview

Explores the way in which the main combatant societies of the Second World War have historicised that experience. Bosworth argues that the traumatic history of the war has remained crucial to the politics of post-war societies.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 041510923X
• ISBN13: 9780415109239
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 278 Pages
• Weight: 1.18 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Eye opening

I had the privilege of taking an undergraduate history course taught by Richard Bosworth in 1988. This book is based on a part of that course, but was only published some years later. It is a book about historiography, that is, about the writing of history. It is not about chronology. It is a country-specific survey of the way historians, journalists, novelists, film-makers, politicians and others have thought of and portrayed the Second World War and their country's role in it. It is beautifully written, provocative, amusing and totally absorbing - not at all what you might expect of a "textbook". You do not need a detailed knowledge of the history of the war or of any particular country to appreciate it. It has been on my bookshelf for many years now and I have come back to it again and again, sometimes for a chapter, sometimes to re-read it cover-to-cover.