How could this happen explaining the Holocaust McMillan, Dan Ph.D creator text bibliography nyu 2014 monographic eng print xi, 276 pages ; 24 cm "The Holocaust has long seemed incomprehensible, a monumental crime that beggars our powers of description and explanation. Historians have probed the many sources of this tragedy, but no account has united the various causes into an overarching synthesis that answers the vital question: How was such a nightmare possible in the heart of Western civilization? In How Could This Happen, historian Dan McMillan distills the vast body of Holocaust research into a cogent explanation and comprehensive analysis of the genocide's many causes, revealing how a once-progressive society like Germany could have carried out this crime. The Holocaust, he explains, was caused not by one but by a combination of factors--from Germany's failure to become a democracy until 1918, to the widespread acceptance of anti-Semitism and scientific racism, to the effects of World War I, which intensified political divisions within the country and drastically lowered the value of human life in the minds of an entire generation. Masterfully synthesizing the myriad causes that led Germany to disaster, McMillan shows why thousands of Germans carried out the genocide while millions watched, with cold indifference, as it enveloped their homeland. Persuasive and compelling, How Could This Happen explains how a perfect storm of bleak circumstances, malevolent ideas, and damaged personalities unleashed history's most terrifying atrocity"-- Posing the question -- A genocide like no other -- Why Germany? -- A world of enemies -- Hardened by war -- Division and disaster -- Why Hitler? -- From dictator to demigod -- Why the Jewish people? -- Hatred as science -- The absent moral compass -- What they knew. Dan McMillan. Includes bibliographical references and index. e-gx--- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Causes Germany Social conditions 1918-1933 Germany Social conditions 1933-1945 Germany Politics and government 1933-1945 HISTORY / Europe / Germany HISTORY / Modern / 20th Century HISTORY / Jewish Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) 1918 - 1945 fast Political science Social history War Causes Germany D804.3 .M398 2014 940.53/1811 HIS043000 HIS014000 HIS037070 HIS022000 9780465080243 (hardback) 0465080243 (hardback) 9780465036646 (ebook) 2013051212 DLC 131230 20151206100505.0 in00003471867 eng