Book contents
- The Cambridge History of the Holocaust
- The Cambridge History Of The Holocaust
- The Cambridge History of the Holocaust
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Contributors to Volume IV
- Abbreviations
- Additional material
- General Editor’s Introduction
- Introduction to Volume IV
- Part I History
- Part II Geography
- Part III Culture and Ideas
- 13 The Holocaust and Social Thought
- 14 The Holocaust and the Challenges of Representation
- 15 In Search of Global Justice: Holocaust, Genocide, Law
- 16 Theological Responses to the Holocaust
- 17 The Holocaust and Digital Humanities
- Part IV Culture and Fields
- Index
- References
13 - The Holocaust and Social Thought
from Part III - Culture and Ideas
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 May 2025
Book contents
- The Cambridge History of the Holocaust
- The Cambridge History Of The Holocaust
- The Cambridge History of the Holocaust
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Contributors to Volume IV
- Abbreviations
- Additional material
- General Editor’s Introduction
- Introduction to Volume IV
- Part I History
- Part II Geography
- Part III Culture and Ideas
- 13 The Holocaust and Social Thought
- 14 The Holocaust and the Challenges of Representation
- 15 In Search of Global Justice: Holocaust, Genocide, Law
- 16 Theological Responses to the Holocaust
- 17 The Holocaust and Digital Humanities
- Part IV Culture and Fields
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter examines how the Holocaust affected thinking about the humanities and social sciences throughout the West. It offers an intellectual history of key responses to the Holocaust, with an emphasis on political philosophy and social theory. Major intellectuals (Arendt, Adorno, Agamben), as well as less well-known thinkers (Günther Anders, Moishe Postone) are considered. The trajectory of post-Holocaust thought forms the throughline. In the first postwar decades, the Jewish genocide was considered as part of a broader eruption of war and totalitarian violence, while more recent thinkers have tended to subsume the entire history of Western violence, perhaps even “the West” itself, under the sign of the Holocaust.
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- The Cambridge History of the Holocaust , pp. 309 - 331Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
References
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