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Loading... Modernidad y Holocausto (original 1989; edition 2007)by Zygmunt Bauman (Author), Ana Mendoza (Translator)
Work InformationModernity and the Holocaust by Zygmunt Bauman (1989)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Sociology is concerned with modern society, but seems never to have come to terms with one of the most distinctive and horrific aspects of modernity - the Holocaust. This work examines what sociology can teach us about the Holocaust, but more particularly concentrates on the lesson which the Holocaust has for sociology. Baumann's work argues that the Holocaust has to be understood as deeply involved with the nature of modernity.
"Intellectually rich and provocative. . . . This is a text which belongs in our classrooms as well as on our shelves. Exceptionally well written." "Such is the concentrated brilliance of Modernity and the Holocaust that it is sure to find an appreciative audience in every field of research which touches on the Holocaust (or which has been touched by it). Above all, to those who still hold faith with the notions of civilization, progress, and reason, this book will sit alongside others which have challenged fundamental beliefs of our time." 'The book should be widely read by students of the social sciences, since it is, apart from a provocative analysis of explanations of genocide, a critique of sociology, which Bauman claims has neglected the ethical dilemmas posed by the destruction of the Jews.' 'This is a profound book, brilliant in its insights ... It demands wide readership.' 'Modernity and the Holocaust is a very fine book. Broad in scope and penetrating in analysis, it is disturbing as its subject matter demands, yet never fails to preserve the crucial element of reflective distance out of which new or more acute knowledge is able to emerge.'
Sociology is concerned with modern society, but has never come to terms with one of the most distinctive and horrific aspects of modernity - the Holocaust. The book examines what sociology can teach us about the Holocaust, but more particularly concentrates upon the lessons which the Holocaust has for sociology. Bauman's work demonstrates that the Holocaust has to be understood as deeply involved with the nature of modernity. There is nothing comparable to this work available in the sociological literature. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)940.5318History and Geography Europe Europe 1918- World War II Social, political, economic history; Holocaust HolocaustLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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In situating the Holocaust not only within modernity, but as a historical fact of that modernity, one surely has to feel compelled by that past presence of murder and cruelty, which stands in the intermediaries to the rise of post-modern culture in Europe. Bauman takes further steps in assimilating the lessons of the events of the Holocaust in the mainstream of the theory of modernity and of the civilizing process and its effects. By showing, how social rationalization and the development of cold bureaucracies and inhuman administration has led to these somehow unbelievable events, Bauman steps into the path, which was once pursued by Hannah Arendt and Theodor W. Adorno. He is not, however, tempted to construe once again the irrational monsters of the Nazi-thugs, but takes his stance in simply knowing that the ones responsible for these cruel deeds were mostly - even if cold-blooded - very normal, and seemingly moral people.
Morality is, for Bauman, a pre-social feeling, rather than something which is produced within societal development itself; once considering the effects of modern social engineering, one cannot but assume that it is society itself which represses moral feelings. With the growing distance between the actor in this society and the effects of his actions, which he sometimes doesn't even recognize, morality gets more and more useless and finally vanishes.
Bauman's book about the embedment of the Holocaust in modernity is a well reflected plea for the moral issues that nowadays are at stake: humanity and freedom. He finishes his book:
"This is by far the most important lesson of the Holocaust which needs to be learned and remembered. If Orwell is right that control of the past allows control of the future, it is imperative, for the sake of that future, that those who control the present are not allowed to manipulate the past in a fashion likely to render the future inhospitable to humanity and uninhabitable." (p. 250) ( )