＊ 古根汉奖学金得奖作品！
 
纳粹党到底为什么要在西元1938年11月9日这天烧光德国境内所有的《希伯来圣经》？ 历史学家一直大规模的评估大屠杀发生的方式与原因，但到目前为止，他们都还没有确切的将这个错综复杂的事件也纳入考量。作者Alon Confino从这个全新的分析观点着手，找出三大洲的相关档案，重新评估并直捣这个二十世纪最大的道德问题核心。Confino 表示，惊人的是，战前几年的文化里早已透露着战争时会发生的这场犹太大屠杀。
 
作者没有将注意力放在德国人到底知不知道这场大屠杀的争论上，反而探讨德国人是如何在脑海里形成“没有犹太人的德国”的这个想法。他追溯回那些纳粹党告诉他们自己的故事─为什么会有纳粹与他们要朝哪里前进─还有那些故事是如何变成这种结果的：必须除去犹太人，新的纳粹文明才能出头。要打造这个新帝国，就要把犹太人和犹太教从基督教历史中抹去，就是这样的想法和这个理由，产生了我们所知的：碎玻璃之夜（Kristallnacht）。就在德国人想像没有犹太人存在的未来世界时，迫害和屠杀变成一种想法，甚至变得合理。
 
好评
“Insightful [and] chilling. . . . Represents Nazism less as a ‘banality of evil’ and more as an ‘intimate brutality.’”—Kirkus Reviews
 
“Well written [and] provocative.”—Frederic Crome, Library Journal
 
“Quietly devastating . . . [a] short, staggering new book . . . an absolutely horrifying portrait . . . at once so disturbing and so hypnotic to read . . . in clear, unsparing prose . . . . Deserves the widest possible audience.”—Steve Donoghue, Open Letters
 
“Confino has done a great service by drawing our attention to the mythic dimension of the Nazis’ apocalyptic war against the Jews.”—David Biale, Los Angeles Review of Books
 
"In this pioneering exploration and explanation of Nazi antisemitic violence as a failed cultural revolution, Alon Confino's presentation is compelling, convincing, and long overdue. Uncovering new evidence and reexamining what has been known in an original way, A World Without Jews is an important history of culture as an agent of genocide." — Wendy Lower, author of Hitler’s Furies, National Book Award Finalist
 
"A very original and persuasive account of the Holocaust. With style, imagination, and confidence, Confino has offered a telling critique of the reading of the Nazis as racial ideologues and shown how Nazi persecution was embedded in Christian imagery and memory."  —Mark Roseman, Indiana University
 
"Confino is a fluent writer with an eye for salient episodes . . . He moves from bonfire to battlefield, composing a tapestry of unremitting horrors . . . [an] important book." —Karl E. Meyer, Moment
 
"A thoughtful, eloquent, and provocative work of intellectual and cultural history . . . [that] may change the state of play in Holocaust studies for years to come." —Christopher J. Probst, Contemporary Church History Quarterly
 
"Thousands of books explain the political, social, and institutional origins of the Holocaust. As Alon Confino shows with style, sensitivity and nuance, the Nazis also built their racial state and committed genocide on the basis of German collective memory. An important and challenging book that pushes the boundaries of Holocaust history, A World Without Jews will be widely read and keenly debated."
—Dan Stone, Royal Holloway, University of London
 
"In this refreshingly provocative re-reading of Nazi anti-Semitism, Alon Confino depicts a civilizational reordering of German origins and the making of a radically transgressive new European order.  He sensitively analyzes how this counter-narrative was cruelly and fanatically implemented from 1933 on and illustrates it in almost unbearably graphic photographs."
—Steven E. Aschheim, author of At the Edges of Liberalism
 
"Incisive . . . a major new interpretation of the Holocaust . . . Confino is such a subtle and persuasive writer . . . his speculations are never less than compelling."—Devin O. Pendas, German History
 
"Confino is a fluent writer with an eye for salient episodes . . . He moves from bonfire to battlefield, composing a tapestry of unremitting horrors . . . [an] important book."
—Karl E. Meyer, Moment
 
"Well written [and] provocative." —Frederic Crome, Library Journal
 
"Quietly devastating . . . [a] short, staggering new book . . . an absolutely horrifying portrait . . . at once so disturbing and so hypnotic to read . . . in clear, unsparing prose . . . . Deserves the widest possible audience." —Steve Donoghue, Open Letters
 
"Bold and provocative . . . important." —Jonathan Kirsch, Jewish Journal
 
“Persuasive." —David Mikics, Tablet
  
"Highly original and edifying . . . the writing is powerful and convincing and [Confino’s] evidence and conclusions will certainly push the boundaries of Holocaust scholarship and discussion for years to come." —Michael N. Dobkowski, Jewish Book Council
 
"Stimulating . . . chilling . . . [Confino] skillfully shows how the Nazis pursued their own origin myth by attacking Jewish history and memory."—Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, Jewish Review of Books
 
"One of the most important books on the Holocaust to be published in recent years . . . a historical breakthrough . . . accessible and fascinating."—Amos Goldberg, H-Net Reviews
 
"Confino’s study is a triumphant demonstration that Nazi anti-Jewish policies are within the realms of comprehension and that it is possible to find the words to explain them accessibly and forcefully." —David Cesarani, Fathom
 
"A thoughtful, eloquent, and provocative work of intellectual and cultural history . . . [that] may change the state of play in Holocaust studies for years to come."—Christopher J. Probst, Contemporary Church History Quarterly
 
关于作者
Alon Confino是美国维吉尼亚州立大学与以色列Ben-Gurion大学的教授。他目前住在维吉尼亚州的夏绿蒂镇。他是The Nation As a Local Metaphor: Württemberg, Imperial Germany, and National Memory, 1871-1918 (1997) 与 Germany As a Culture of Remembrance: Promises and Limits of Writing History (2006)的作者。过去几年，他都在研究大屠杀，他将研究成果写成Foundational Pasts: The  Holocaust As Historical Understanding (Cambridge University Press, New York, 2012) 与  A World Without Jews: The Nazi Imagination from Persecution to Genocide (Yale University Press, 2014)后面这本赢得了古根汉奖学金。
 
Confino得到Fulbright、Humboldt与 Lady Davis、希伯来大学高级研究院、社会科学研究理事会、以色列科学学院、维吉尼亚州立大学高级文化研究院、维吉尼亚人道基金会与华盛顿州美国大屠杀遇难者纪念馆高级中心等多数机构的资助。