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The Cunning of History: The Holocaust and the American Future
"Rubenstein is forcing us to reinterpret the meaning of Auschwitz - especially, though not exclusively, from the standpoint of its existence as part of a continuum of slavery that has been engrafted for centuries onto the very body of Western civilization. Therefore, in the process of destroying the myth and the preconception, he is making us see that that encampment of death and suffering may have been more horrible than we had ever imagined. It was slavery in its ultimate embodiment. He is making us understand that the etiology of Auschwitz - to some, a diabolical, perhaps freakish excrescence, which vanished from the face of the earth with the destruction of the crematoria in 1945 - is actually embedded deeply in a cultural tradition that stretches back to the Middle Passage from the coast of Africa, and beyond, to the enforced servitude in ancient Greece and Rome. Rubenstein is saying that we ignore this linkage, and the existence of the sleeping virus in the bloodstream of civilization, at risk of our future."
From William Styron's Introduction
From William Styron's Introduction
113 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1975
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March 7, 2014I'm not sure how to rate this book. How do you like a discussion of the Holocaust? Do I say I like it because it made me think about it in a different manner? Do I say I like it because it presents a coherent structure and sets forth reasonable arguments and reaches reasonable conclusions from a particular point of view, if you start from the same given premise? Do I not like it because I don't agree with the world view that allows the conclusions though each point in themselves is highly defensible? Do I not like it because of its clinical detachment from emotion or that one of its major points is that the Holocaust was possible precisely because of a clinical detachment from emotion?
It is easy to say what is not likable or hateful or just plain abhorrent about certain analysis of the Holocaust but this is not hateful or abhorrent, this is just cold and supposes a relatively hopeless view of humanity. But these are arguments that need to be heard about the dangers that await us and have ensnared us in the past, the devils in our nature that we need to face, discussions that we must have to continue what Robert Wright calls an arrow through time as we grow in our ability to communicate, trust and include and to allow us to discover the “better angles of our nature” as Steven Pinker writes. So I can't say I like this book but I do recommend that it be read and thought about.
It is easy to say what is not likable or hateful or just plain abhorrent about certain analysis of the Holocaust but this is not hateful or abhorrent, this is just cold and supposes a relatively hopeless view of humanity. But these are arguments that need to be heard about the dangers that await us and have ensnared us in the past, the devils in our nature that we need to face, discussions that we must have to continue what Robert Wright calls an arrow through time as we grow in our ability to communicate, trust and include and to allow us to discover the “better angles of our nature” as Steven Pinker writes. So I can't say I like this book but I do recommend that it be read and thought about.
October 14, 2012
This book really underscores how easy it was for the Nazis to carry out their Final Solution by precision, discipline and technology. Know how we know the horrendous numbers of Jews and others killed during the Holocaust? From the German SS itself. They were quite proud of how accurate the were in their record keeping. However, this cold and impersonal bureaucratic system allowed them to detach from the cruel reality it represented. Jews were reduced to a number that could be simply erased, at least on paper, "in good conscience" because it was a "clean" killing. And the plan to not just kill the strong ones outright -- to have them work themselves to death with minuscule food as sustenance -- not only was an advantage for the Germans (who needed wartime labor) but it also served as another way to clear their conscience by watching the Jews wither down to skin and bones and realize then that the person's death was merciful. This little book is a powerful cautionary tale.
June 11, 2015
Starts with an interesting premise and has some interesting thoughts about the rise of bureaucratic power and the dehumanizing process needed to run the holocaust but to me the author has a very narrow view of history. It is not like the American south created slavery and then that suddenly morphed into Nazism and the final solution yet this book tries to connect these things very closely. History will give you plenty of examples even in the intervening period and then confusingly the author acknowledges the two were very different.
Maybe the US and the UK didn't do enough to stop the Nazis exterminating many Jews but it is another thing to say they are complicit and then also blame western religion for it. Then he goes on a tangent or rant about Nixon (in office around the time this was written) and capitalism but his fears about a Malthusian future in the west have proved alarmist and incorrect (living standards have improved in the west and the population has continued to grow and grow). In that sense this is dated and the final half of the book is weak. In an elliptical way the book sounds kind of forgiving of Nazism which is really quite offensive. Read this since some of ideas - particularly discussing antebellum slavery alongside the final solution clearly influenced William Styron in Sophie's choice.
Maybe the US and the UK didn't do enough to stop the Nazis exterminating many Jews but it is another thing to say they are complicit and then also blame western religion for it. Then he goes on a tangent or rant about Nixon (in office around the time this was written) and capitalism but his fears about a Malthusian future in the west have proved alarmist and incorrect (living standards have improved in the west and the population has continued to grow and grow). In that sense this is dated and the final half of the book is weak. In an elliptical way the book sounds kind of forgiving of Nazism which is really quite offensive. Read this since some of ideas - particularly discussing antebellum slavery alongside the final solution clearly influenced William Styron in Sophie's choice.
December 28, 2017
Read Peikoff's Ominous Parallels instead!
February 18, 2025
Slavery came to us from the Greco-Roman tradition we so unthinkingly embrace without stint--it's apparently a lethal virus in the human bloodstream, this insatiable lust to dominate other human beings. When we learn about the Holocaust, what we learn is how the Nazis systematically executed more than 6 million people, especially in gas chambers. What we DON'T learn, however, is even more important. And far more dire.
I didn't know, before reading this, that there was a rubber factory at Auschwitz. In 1943 Hitler signed an act to exterminate all Jews. As is happening in our own country right now, chaos ensued. Almost immediately, Hitler's requirements shifted. Instead of killing people outright, corporatism would first put them to work making synthetic rubber--they would work for three months and then be left to die without food or water. NAZI GERMANY PERFECTED THE BUREAUCRATIZATION OF MODERN SLAVERY BASED ENTIRELY ON HUMAN EXPENDABILITY. It is what our present regime is promoting in its savagery against immigration. It is what JD Vance was proposing to the EU this past week when he talked about "the enemy within." It is corporatism's perfect answer to the problem of stateless people. (It should also be noted here that, in the final count, very little synthetic rubber was actually produced.)
Earth has an overwhelming number of surplus people--altogether, there are 8 billion of us now. Violence, political upheaval, poverty, and most recently, climate change is creating massive waves of immigration all over the world. There are literally millions of stateless people. Think about that.
In My Fourth Time, We Drowned: Seeking Refuge on the World's Deadliest Migration Route, by Sally Hayden, I was shocked to learn that the EU has since at least 2014 been paying vast sums to Libya to prevent migrants from accessing the Mediterranean. (Libya scores 1 in 40 for political rights, and 8 in 60 for civil rights. Freedomhouse.org writes that, "proliferation of weapons and autonomous militias, flourishing criminal networks, the interference of regional powers, and the presence of extremist groups have all contributed to the country’s persistent lack of physical security. More than a decade of violence has displaced hundreds of thousands of people, and human rights conditions have steadily deteriorated.") With EU funding, criminal gangs now routinely imprison migrants traveling from the region of Ethiopia, extorting them to beg their families for money to keep them barely alive. SURPLUS PEOPLE. The EU has already explicitly shown it doesn't care whether these people live or die.
White western Europe will increasingly agree to fascism because of what it deems to be intrusive human lives. (A recent, 24-year old Aghan asylum seeker's attempt to murder people by car in Munich on 02/13/'25, causing injuries to 30 people and the death of a mother and child--which Vance heavily underlined in his speech--only exacerbates the issue against Muslims, especially. The frustration is understandable, even laudable, as Israel and the US are proceeding with genocide in Palestine. The act itself was uneducated/misinformed, foolish, morally wrong, and will prove profoundly counterproductive, akin to burning one's own alive.)
Corporatism has already been monumentally successful in creating a nation of wage slaves in North America. Now, our leadership no longer cares to prevent pollution of our water, soil, air, or even food. Corporatism demands that all regulations be terminated--it's why Musk has destroyed every agency that had been conducting at least 38 investigations into his sketchy businesses, with which he's siphoned billions in US subsidies; it's why he purchased the presidency. Corporatism--fascism by its more accurate name--is systematically destroying the poor healthcare structure we have had and will soon actively dissuade us from the vaccines that have protected us for decades. This is all by design.
The powers that be have decided they will have AI to support their extravagant lifestyles--and slaves when/where AI proves insufficient. They stupidly believe that without the rest of us to use up all that remains of oil and gas, their own lives will last longer. (while AI uses up extravagant amounts of both water & electricity, the equivalent of entire countries'.) It's a criminal enterprise and as acutely immoral as everything the Nazis did in Hitler's name.
In the 1930s, the German people were starved for jobs and thought everything would be better because the Nazis had developed a very powerful propaganda system, whereby a lie repeated so many times inevitably became seen as truth. Hitler's master liar-in-chief, Goebbels, proudly revealed all its machinations, beginning with cooptation of the press. Today, the Heritage Foundation authors of Project 2025, now everywhere illegally embedded in the new federal regime, are using his every trick. With the worldwide web, disinformation is so easy, Russia routinely uses it against us. In the 1960s Nikita Krushchev swore to destroy America from within--and they've done it. We are now merely a Russian satellite. Putin, long the world's pariah, will soon be feted at the White House. WE are now the world's pariah.
We will all soon be slaves in a bureaucratic structure reliant upon HUMAN EXPENDABILITY. Human expendability has long been how Musk, the felon, and 813 billionaires have wrested wealth from the rest of us. Every time immigrants are savaged in the fascist-fawning legacy press, every time you see innocents being transported to Guantan-a-Lago chained at wrists and feet, think how very little your White privilege actually protects you--which is not at all. You breathe the same filthy air, drink the same carcinogenic water, suffer the same adulteration of our food supply, are rapidly or will soon be losing your careers and or jobs, women already losing their lives--and every single one of us will eventually be disabled and in need of care beyond the unpaid, sole support of family women. The human rights of immigrants are, finally, the only rights any of us have. As they lose theirs, you lose yours.
THIS IS A BRIEF ESSAY, BARELY OVER A HUNDRED PAGES. IT'S A MUST READ BEYOND ANYTHING I'VE EVER RECOMMENDED. It is whatever brief future is left to humanity unless we rise up and resist with far more than we've shown so far. The climate chaos clock is ticking with fewer than 60 seconds left (about 30 years) before Earth burns and humanity is extinguished.
I didn't know, before reading this, that there was a rubber factory at Auschwitz. In 1943 Hitler signed an act to exterminate all Jews. As is happening in our own country right now, chaos ensued. Almost immediately, Hitler's requirements shifted. Instead of killing people outright, corporatism would first put them to work making synthetic rubber--they would work for three months and then be left to die without food or water. NAZI GERMANY PERFECTED THE BUREAUCRATIZATION OF MODERN SLAVERY BASED ENTIRELY ON HUMAN EXPENDABILITY. It is what our present regime is promoting in its savagery against immigration. It is what JD Vance was proposing to the EU this past week when he talked about "the enemy within." It is corporatism's perfect answer to the problem of stateless people. (It should also be noted here that, in the final count, very little synthetic rubber was actually produced.)
Earth has an overwhelming number of surplus people--altogether, there are 8 billion of us now. Violence, political upheaval, poverty, and most recently, climate change is creating massive waves of immigration all over the world. There are literally millions of stateless people. Think about that.
In My Fourth Time, We Drowned: Seeking Refuge on the World's Deadliest Migration Route, by Sally Hayden, I was shocked to learn that the EU has since at least 2014 been paying vast sums to Libya to prevent migrants from accessing the Mediterranean. (Libya scores 1 in 40 for political rights, and 8 in 60 for civil rights. Freedomhouse.org writes that, "proliferation of weapons and autonomous militias, flourishing criminal networks, the interference of regional powers, and the presence of extremist groups have all contributed to the country’s persistent lack of physical security. More than a decade of violence has displaced hundreds of thousands of people, and human rights conditions have steadily deteriorated.") With EU funding, criminal gangs now routinely imprison migrants traveling from the region of Ethiopia, extorting them to beg their families for money to keep them barely alive. SURPLUS PEOPLE. The EU has already explicitly shown it doesn't care whether these people live or die.
White western Europe will increasingly agree to fascism because of what it deems to be intrusive human lives. (A recent, 24-year old Aghan asylum seeker's attempt to murder people by car in Munich on 02/13/'25, causing injuries to 30 people and the death of a mother and child--which Vance heavily underlined in his speech--only exacerbates the issue against Muslims, especially. The frustration is understandable, even laudable, as Israel and the US are proceeding with genocide in Palestine. The act itself was uneducated/misinformed, foolish, morally wrong, and will prove profoundly counterproductive, akin to burning one's own alive.)
Corporatism has already been monumentally successful in creating a nation of wage slaves in North America. Now, our leadership no longer cares to prevent pollution of our water, soil, air, or even food. Corporatism demands that all regulations be terminated--it's why Musk has destroyed every agency that had been conducting at least 38 investigations into his sketchy businesses, with which he's siphoned billions in US subsidies; it's why he purchased the presidency. Corporatism--fascism by its more accurate name--is systematically destroying the poor healthcare structure we have had and will soon actively dissuade us from the vaccines that have protected us for decades. This is all by design.
The powers that be have decided they will have AI to support their extravagant lifestyles--and slaves when/where AI proves insufficient. They stupidly believe that without the rest of us to use up all that remains of oil and gas, their own lives will last longer. (while AI uses up extravagant amounts of both water & electricity, the equivalent of entire countries'.) It's a criminal enterprise and as acutely immoral as everything the Nazis did in Hitler's name.
In the 1930s, the German people were starved for jobs and thought everything would be better because the Nazis had developed a very powerful propaganda system, whereby a lie repeated so many times inevitably became seen as truth. Hitler's master liar-in-chief, Goebbels, proudly revealed all its machinations, beginning with cooptation of the press. Today, the Heritage Foundation authors of Project 2025, now everywhere illegally embedded in the new federal regime, are using his every trick. With the worldwide web, disinformation is so easy, Russia routinely uses it against us. In the 1960s Nikita Krushchev swore to destroy America from within--and they've done it. We are now merely a Russian satellite. Putin, long the world's pariah, will soon be feted at the White House. WE are now the world's pariah.
We will all soon be slaves in a bureaucratic structure reliant upon HUMAN EXPENDABILITY. Human expendability has long been how Musk, the felon, and 813 billionaires have wrested wealth from the rest of us. Every time immigrants are savaged in the fascist-fawning legacy press, every time you see innocents being transported to Guantan-a-Lago chained at wrists and feet, think how very little your White privilege actually protects you--which is not at all. You breathe the same filthy air, drink the same carcinogenic water, suffer the same adulteration of our food supply, are rapidly or will soon be losing your careers and or jobs, women already losing their lives--and every single one of us will eventually be disabled and in need of care beyond the unpaid, sole support of family women. The human rights of immigrants are, finally, the only rights any of us have. As they lose theirs, you lose yours.
THIS IS A BRIEF ESSAY, BARELY OVER A HUNDRED PAGES. IT'S A MUST READ BEYOND ANYTHING I'VE EVER RECOMMENDED. It is whatever brief future is left to humanity unless we rise up and resist with far more than we've shown so far. The climate chaos clock is ticking with fewer than 60 seconds left (about 30 years) before Earth burns and humanity is extinguished.
February 16, 2009
In this book, Richard L. Rubenstein discusses the decidedly secular shift of First World nations and how religion has "evolved" to where humans view themselves as gods among man. He outlined the procession as beginning with "pagan" beliefs centered on worshiping multiple gods residing alongside humans on earth, later to be overtaken by Christianity and modern religions that take "god" out of the earth and place "him" in the sky, beyond our reach and understanding. The phase he theorizes we've entered into now is where humankind, after centuries of being "detached" from god and growing increasingly ignorant on spiritual matters, begins to see itself as "god-like" and no longer held accountable to superstitious religions. This progression is further enabled and compounded by our latest century of unprecedented technological advancements. This combination of events, Rubenstein argues, is responsible for grave injustices and genocides on a scale never before experienced in history (his prime example being the Holocaust) and these are likely only to continue and worsen as human civilization shifts into this new secular era. At least this is my interpretation of his writings.
May 23, 2012
This short book (or a long essay) does not go into the specific details of what went on inside the death camps - there are other books that do that. This does not mean that you can fast-read this little book; whatever short descriptions of the unimaginable horrors that took place only 70 years ago do take a toll on your emotions. And was I glad that I took my time reading this essay. Surely the savagery, cruelty, inhumanity and degradation of the Holocaust can never happen? Well, don’t be so sure. Even though the book was written over 40 years ago, I think the relevance of the themes developed are more relevant in this age of advanced informational technology, and the struggles we are now living through post-2001. Highly recommended.
November 2, 2007
Often the books with the largest amount of horrific reportage have the least insight. There is some horrific reportage here, but the level of insight is exceedingly high. It isn't an overwhelming gross-out full of corpses; it's a calm search for some understanding of the meaning of what happened. He gets much farther than one might expect.
April 22, 2010
Really fascinating!!! Argues that a holocaust of some kind was inevitable due to the capitalistic, bureaucratized nature of Western civilization. Demonstrates a historical progression leading up to the Holocaust of World War II, and raises questions as to the possibility of another systematic targeting of a particular group. I may have to see if I can buy a copy somewhere just to have on hand.
March 21, 2008
Really thought-provoking. Bleak, cynical, disturbing. The author doesn't seem to believe in Marxism, definately not capitalism,. . .or the innate goodness of mankind. He also has some conspiracy theories, but his take on bureaucracy and slavery is interesting
January 7, 2015
Absolutely horrifying yet fascinating. Far more than strictly historical and descriptive, this book has underlying philosophical implications (Kant, Rousseau, Nietzsche, Weber, Hume, and Heidegger come to mind).
February 11, 2008
A really interesting theory that traces dehumanization from American slavery through the industrial revolution to Auschwitz.
September 7, 2012
The beginning of an intellectual path.
May 22, 2024
so so interesting
1. This satiated the suppressed craving I have had for a little history lesson. Recently shocked by how little I retained from my education, I would honestly pay money to take an AP euro class.
2. Confession: So many parts of history feel like fairy tales to me. I can’t fathom WWII having happened within the last 100 years. I can’t really fathom it happening at all, which leads me to my next thought
3. The human condition ????????? wth
4. Additionally, it was interesting to think through the eminence of such a bureaucratic shitshow
5. My favorite part of the reading experience was accidentally reading the essay at the same time I am studying Joshua. Considering the arguments parellel to an original societal displacement in the name of religion,,, crazy and difficult and compelling.
1. This satiated the suppressed craving I have had for a little history lesson. Recently shocked by how little I retained from my education, I would honestly pay money to take an AP euro class.
2. Confession: So many parts of history feel like fairy tales to me. I can’t fathom WWII having happened within the last 100 years. I can’t really fathom it happening at all, which leads me to my next thought
3. The human condition ????????? wth
4. Additionally, it was interesting to think through the eminence of such a bureaucratic shitshow
5. My favorite part of the reading experience was accidentally reading the essay at the same time I am studying Joshua. Considering the arguments parellel to an original societal displacement in the name of religion,,, crazy and difficult and compelling.
August 7, 2023
I read this book when I was 12. it was the second book I ever bought and it was by chance, as it was sitting by the cash register at paperbacks Unlimited, a Detroit-area bookstore. It opened my eyes to how depraved human nature is, and made Hannah Ardent's term 'the banality of evil' take on flesh and blood. Rubenstein's comments on I G. Farben and the deployment of Zyklon B made me see how evil isn't only the work of the executioners but also of all those who help them from the shadows - or from corporate suites, government offices, etc. It's a book to keep, re-read and share with others.
December 4, 2023
Despite being more of a long essay, 113 pages, author Richard L. Rubenstein, pack in a massive amount of historical history about the darker side of human 'civilization' and the inevitability of slavery, the Auschwitz work/death camp, and the ongoing rise of 20th century authoritarianism.
Not a book for casual reading, but I would recommend it to anyone interested in the history of "civilization", 21st politics, and more specifically European and American History and current affairs.
Not a book for casual reading, but I would recommend it to anyone interested in the history of "civilization", 21st politics, and more specifically European and American History and current affairs.
April 3, 2018
this book provides a unique perspective on the world events, geopolitical climate, and individuals that ultimately lead to the Holocaust. Rubenstein got me a lot more interested in history and is an interesting read in it's own right.
July 26, 2020
This book was a fantastic read that offered up a completely different way to think about the Holocaust and how it does and could effect us today. This should be a must read for everyone.
April 4, 2025
chilling account bureaucracy used to create a killing machine
November 16, 2012
A bunch in the gut... in a good way.
February 26, 2017
Eye-opener and very disturbing. The mind-set of our times may keep biting us in the ass.
March 30, 2017
The chapter on slavery is tacked-on and uses outdated research by Genovese, but the rest of the book is indispensable and sobering for any serious student of the Shoah.
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