| | | Get an edumacation and then try to post as if you actually knew something.
| ADDITIONAL REVIEWS:
"[This] new history argues convincingly that institutionalized racism and common-law pragmatism in the United States inspired Hitler’s policies. . . . Historians have downplayed the connection between Nazi race law and America because America was mainly interested in denying full citizenship rights to blacks rather than Jews. But Whitman’s adroit scholarly detective work has proved that in the mid-’30s Nazi jurists and politicians turned again and again to the way the United States had deprived African-Americans of the right to vote and to marry whites. They were fascinated by the way the United States had turned millions of people into second-class citizens."--David Mikics, Tablet Magazine
"Whitman argues convincingly that American jurisprudence-federal and state alike-provided both inspiration and a model for the most radical Nazi lawyers."--Matthew Harwood, Reason
"Hitler’s American Model is overall, an erudite, well-researched, and thought-provoking study that raises important questions about America’s laws - and leaders - in the not-so-distant past."--Rafael Medoff, Haaretz
"In Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law, James Whitman . . . makes a stunning and unsettling claim about the Nuremberg Laws."--Glen Altschuler, Jerusalem Post
"Through intensive scrutiny of German language transcripts and other primary sources that he translated himself, Yale Law School professor James Whitman develops a story in Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law of unintended American inspiration for the infamous Nazi anti-Jewish laws. It's a story that will shock readers."--David Wecht, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Eerie. . . . [Whitman] illustrates how German propagandists sought to normalize the Nazi agenda domestically by putting forth the United States as a model."--Brent Staples, New York Times
"In his startling new history, Whitman traces the substantial influence of American race laws on the Third Reich. The book, in effect, is a portrait of the United States assembled from the admiring notes of Nazi lawmakers, who routinely referenced American policies in the design of their own racist regime. . . . Whitman’s book contributes to a growing recognition of American influences on Nazi thought."--Jeff Guo, Washington Post
"Whitman’s book is not simply a history of the appalling treatment meted out to African-Americans in the southern states. He points out that by the late 1870s, US immigration and naturalisation law had become more racist, in particular against Asians."--Charlie Hegarty, Catholic Herald
"Brief but revealing. . . . Readers interested in history and justice should certainly engage with this volume, which illustrates how America's history of injustice inspired some of the worst atrocities imaginable."--Guy Lancaster, Arkansas Times
"Whitman’s bracing and well-researched account should remind us that the nativism and racism on the rise in America today are in no way foreign to our traditions. Nor have they belonged mainly to the unwashed and poorly educated. On the contrary, it is only in the middle of the last century that the idea of racial equality began to enter the mainstream, and only in the post-civil rights era that at least some lip service to that ideal became mandatory in polite circles."--Jessica Blatt, Public Books
"In Hitler’s American Model, Yale Law School Professor James Q. Whitman makes a credible case for his assertion that, by the 1930s, ‘America was the obvious preeminent example of a ‘race state’."--The American Interest
"The accepted assumption is that Nazism was the creator and master of the murderous enterprise, while the United States went to war to destroy it. Given such traditional impressions, Whitman tries to show that the racist legal activities against blacks in the United States, mostly in the South, provided inspiration for the Nazis, though they didn’t influence the German anti-Jewish legislation."--Oded Heilbronner, Haaretz
"Historians of the twentieth century often represent the New Deal-era United States and Nazi Germany as polar opposites. This unsettling book demolishes that orthodoxy. . . . Whitman is admirably careful not to exaggerate the influence of the U.S. model on Nazi Germany: he recognizes that twentieth-century American southern racism was decentralized rather than fascist and incapable of inspiring mass murder on the industrial scale of the Holocaust. Indeed, Nazi jurists criticized their American counterparts for their hypocrisy in publicly denying yet locally practicing systematic racism. Whitman reminds readers of the subtle ironies of modern history and of the need to be constantly vigilant against racism."--Andrew Moravcsik, Foreign Affairs
ADDITIONAL ENDORSEMENTS:
"Hitler's American Model is a breathtaking excavation of America's shameful contribution to Hitler's genocidal policies. This book is a profound testament to what the past can teach us about the present and is more timely than Whitman could possibly have imagined when he began this remarkable excursion into our nation's original sin and its surprising European legacy. A brilliant page-turner."--Laurence H. Tribe, Harvard Law School
"This is a brilliant, erudite, and disturbing book. By looking at the United States through the eyes of Nazi legal theorists in the 1930s, Whitman contributes to our understanding of this darkest chapter of German legal history. Moreover, he shines a light through this unlikely lens on the worst sins of our own country's past."--Lawrence M. Friedman, author of A History of American Law
"In Hitler's American Model, Whitman tells the deeply troubling story of how Nazi lawyers drew inspiration from the American legal system. He offers a detailed and careful reading of how U.S. immigration laws and antimiscegenation legislation gave the Nazi legal establishment the sense of remaining within the boundaries of respectable jurisprudence. Filled with novel insights, this is a particularly timely book given today's political climate."--Jan T. Gross, author of Neighbors
"This is a critical book for our difficult times. Whitman forces us to see America through Nazi eyes and to realize how profoundly white supremacy has shaped this country. Chilling in its details, the unsettling insights of Hitler's American Model jump from every page. A must-read!"--Eddie S. Glaude, author of Democracy in Black
"This is one of the most engrossing and disturbing pieces of legal history I've read in a long time. Whitman offers a sustained, systematic, and thoughtful look at how Nazi legal theorists and conservative German lawyers drew on American examples when crafting the Nuremberg laws--Germany's contribution to racial madness in the twentieth century. Whitman's book stands apart from, indeed above, everything I've read regarding America's influence on the making of the Nazi state."—Lawrence Powell, Tulane University
"This spellbinding and haunting book shatters claims that American laws related to race and segregation had little to no impact on the shaping of Nazi policies. Whitman's readings of the Nuremberg laws and Nazi legal scholarship are astonishing--nimble, sophisticated, and nuanced. Speaking volumes, this book will change the way we think about Jim Crow, Nazis, and America's role in the world."—Daniel J. Sharfstein, author of The Invisible Line: A Secret History of Race in America
Return to Book Description
File created: 8/16/2017
|
|
|
