What is the Use of Jewish History? Essays

What is the use of Jewish history? Of history in general, for that matter? When one of the best-known Jewish historians asks this question at the end of a long career, we can be sure of an answer that is profound, passionate, and personal. Lucy Dawidowicz raised an original and deeply influential voice concerning the writing of Holocaust history. After the publication of her ground-breaking and best-selling history of the Nazi genocide, The War Against the Jews, in 1975, she continued to write numerous essays and articles countering the arguments of revisionist historians, as well as the charges of Jewish passivity and American complacency during the Holocaust. This posthumous collection of Dawidowicz's essays presents her published articles on contemporary uses and misuses of the Holocaust, as well as material relating to her last work-in-progress, a major history of American Jews. A testament to the historian's craft by one of its great practitioners, it will inspire all those who see in the writing of history a primary vehicle for the presentation of culture. Edited and with a luminous introduction by Neal Kozodoy, this volume brings to us Lucy Dawidowicz's sure and guiding voice.