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kikiandarrowsfishshelf's review
4.0
Update - Re-read in 2016. Love Guttenplan's even handedness and analysis about the issues. Honesty, this is a really good overview of the trial.
This book is about the Irving vs. Penguin/Lipstadt trial, but unlike Evans, this account is written from an outsider’s point of view. This allows the reader to have both a look at all the sides and the way the wheels of the trial were moving. It is reporting in the sense of the word with a look at what should be done if anything about denial, and placing the trial in content for a non-participate. And while it doesn’t answer the question it raises, it does raise an important one. Lipstadt was sued because the libel laws in England are not as favorable to the writer as they are in say America. But it also allows for the voicing of hateful and hurtful words. That whole sticks and stone rhyme, bullshit. Complete and other bullshit. Nothing hurts more than words.
This book is about the Irving vs. Penguin/Lipstadt trial, but unlike Evans, this account is written from an outsider’s point of view. This allows the reader to have both a look at all the sides and the way the wheels of the trial were moving. It is reporting in the sense of the word with a look at what should be done if anything about denial, and placing the trial in content for a non-participate. And while it doesn’t answer the question it raises, it does raise an important one. Lipstadt was sued because the libel laws in England are not as favorable to the writer as they are in say America. But it also allows for the voicing of hateful and hurtful words. That whole sticks and stone rhyme, bullshit. Complete and other bullshit. Nothing hurts more than words.
somechelsea's review
4.0
Interesting, but not as gripping as Guttenplan aimed for - this is, after all, a book centered around polite courtroom testimony regarding historical documents. The importance of the topic and the pressure on Lipstadt’s defense team to prevent Holocaust Denier David Irving from claiming any victory add weight to the proceedings.
Detours at times into what I’m sure can be considered important context for understanding the full picture of the trial and its place in history, but mostly just centers around a who’s who of British intellectuals of the 1990s, and who was on what side of the different philosophical approaches towards history of the era.
I think Guttenplan was far too easy on Irving, giving him far more benefit of the doubt than he deserved. Anyone who actively makes the case - and obfuscates and misrepresents to bolster his case - that Hitler didn’t intend to systematically murder all the Jews in Europe doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt anywhere except under the law. Also, considering Deborah Lipstadt was the main defendant, the book essentially ignores her part in the proceedings. She didn’t take the stand, so she never came to her own defense over the course of the trial, but her book discrediting Irving’s theories and writings was the impetus for the trail, and both she and her work deserved more attention.
At one point a Professor Richard Evans delivers my favorite quote of the book, under cross-examination by Irving (who represented himself): “... you see, I have a problem, Mr. Irving, which is that, having been through your work, I cannot really accept your version of any document, including passages in my own report, without actually having it in front of me, so I think this may be a problem for us.” Dignified British Historian burn!!
Detours at times into what I’m sure can be considered important context for understanding the full picture of the trial and its place in history, but mostly just centers around a who’s who of British intellectuals of the 1990s, and who was on what side of the different philosophical approaches towards history of the era.
I think Guttenplan was far too easy on Irving, giving him far more benefit of the doubt than he deserved. Anyone who actively makes the case - and obfuscates and misrepresents to bolster his case - that Hitler didn’t intend to systematically murder all the Jews in Europe doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt anywhere except under the law. Also, considering Deborah Lipstadt was the main defendant, the book essentially ignores her part in the proceedings. She didn’t take the stand, so she never came to her own defense over the course of the trial, but her book discrediting Irving’s theories and writings was the impetus for the trail, and both she and her work deserved more attention.
At one point a Professor Richard Evans delivers my favorite quote of the book, under cross-examination by Irving (who represented himself): “... you see, I have a problem, Mr. Irving, which is that, having been through your work, I cannot really accept your version of any document, including passages in my own report, without actually having it in front of me, so I think this may be a problem for us.” Dignified British Historian burn!!
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