Fifty years after W. W. II, the Holocaust is still continually in the news. Examining the Holocaust in our culture and in our psyches, Cesarani questions why, as the new millennium dawns, Jews and non-Jews alike remain so fascinated by it. Cesarani reviews not only what is thought to have happened under the Nazis but how Europe and America responded to the events both at the time and over the past fifty years. While other atrocities are forgotten, Cesarani shows how the Holocaust has been forced onto the world agenda.
The subject of Jewish power is highly controversial - viz. the enormous fuss over Lawson publishing an article about Jews controlling Hollywood in the Spectator. It is a subject which can be tackled only by a serious Jewish academic who knows how to write for a lay audience. Looking at the power, politics and psychology of memory, Cesarani shows how, in the case of the Holocaust, memory has become news, entertainment, history and moral authority.