Niebuhr's great foe was idealism. American idealism, he believed, comes in two forms: the idealism of the antiwar noninterventionists, who are embarrassed by power, and the idealism of pro-war imperialists, who disguise power as virtue. He said the non-interventionists, without mentioning Harry Emerson Fosdick by name, seek to preserve the purity of their souls, either by denouncing military actions or by demanding that every action taken be unequivocally virtuous. They exaggerate the sins committed by their own country, excuse the malevolence of its enemies, and, as later polemicists have put it, inevitably blame America first. This is all just a pious way of refusing to face real problems, Niebuhr argued.[37]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhold_Niebuhr
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Dangerous Games by Margaret MacMillan
"Historians, however, are not scientists, and if they do not make what they are doing intelligible to the public, then others will rush to fill the void. Political and other leaders too often get away with misusing or abusing history for their own ends because the rest of us do not know enough to challenge them. Already much of the history that the public reads and enjoys is written by amateur historians. Some of it is very good, but much is not. Bad history tells only part of complex stories. It claims knowledge that it could not possibly, have, as when, for example, it purports to give the unspoken thoughts of its characters."
Sunday, March 28, 2010
kristallnacht
Kristallnacht (German pronunciation: [kʁɪsˈtalˌnaxt]; literally "Crystal Night") or the Night of Broken Glass was an anti-Jewish pogrom in Nazi Germany and Austria on 9 to 10 November 1938. It is also known as Novemberpogrome, Reichskristallnacht, Reichspogromnacht or Pogromnacht in German.[1]
Kristallnacht was triggered by the assassination in Paris of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, a German-born Polish Jew. In a coordinated attack on Jewish people and their property, 91 Jews were murdered and 25,000 to 30,000 were arrested and placed in concentration camps. 267 synagogues were destroyed, and thousands of homes and businesses were ransacked. This was done by the Hitler Youth, the Gestapo and the SS.[2] Kristallnacht also served as a pretext and a means for the wholesale confiscation of firearms from German Jews.[3]
While the assassination of Rath served as a pretext for the attacks, Kristallnacht was part of a broader Nazi policy of antisemitism and persecution of the Jews.[4] Kristallnacht was followed by further economic and political persecutions. It is viewed by many historians as the beginning of the Final Solution, leading towards the genocide of the Holocaust.
further reading
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht was triggered by the assassination in Paris of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, a German-born Polish Jew. In a coordinated attack on Jewish people and their property, 91 Jews were murdered and 25,000 to 30,000 were arrested and placed in concentration camps. 267 synagogues were destroyed, and thousands of homes and businesses were ransacked. This was done by the Hitler Youth, the Gestapo and the SS.[2] Kristallnacht also served as a pretext and a means for the wholesale confiscation of firearms from German Jews.[3]
While the assassination of Rath served as a pretext for the attacks, Kristallnacht was part of a broader Nazi policy of antisemitism and persecution of the Jews.[4] Kristallnacht was followed by further economic and political persecutions. It is viewed by many historians as the beginning of the Final Solution, leading towards the genocide of the Holocaust.
further reading
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht
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