Enzo Traverso je předním historikem a teoretikem současné doby, jehož práce se hluboce zabývá povahou totality, násilí a složitými vztahy mezi skupinami v historických konfliktech. Své poznatky čerpá z širokého spektra disciplín, včetně politologie a sociologie, aby analyzoval kořeny a projevy extremistických ideologií a jejich dopad na společnost. Jeho psaní se vyznačuje pronikavým analytickým přístupem a snahou porozumět temným stránkám moderní historie, aby osvětlil jejich trvalý vliv. Traversovi práce jsou ceněny pro svou intelektuální hloubku a přispívají k pochopení klíčových výzev 20. a 21. století.
Kniha Trhlina v dějinách je příspěvkem do dnes již rozsáhlého souboru děl o holocaustu. Francouzský kulturní historik Enzo Traverso se však termínu holocaust vyhýbá a s diskursivní přísností, charakteristickou pro francouzskou esejistickou literaturu, hovoří o židovské genocidě. Zaměřil se, jak sám předesílá, na její první reflexi ve čtyřicátých a padesátých letech, v době, kdy v evropské kultuře zaujímala jen okrajové místo. Odhaluje, jak se inteligence západního světa vnitřně bránila přijetí signálů od hlásičů požáru, vizionářů upozorňujících na prvky odcizení člověka sobě a osvícenské kultuře založené na humanitě, jak odmítala akceptovat svědectví o genocidě a jak zrůdný fakt vyhlazovacích táborů zpracovali ve svých dílech autentičtí svědci, kteří přežili.
Enzo Traverso's investigation is based on a brilliant-although controversial-
idea. It is an important book that deserves to prompt vast and interesting
debates. -Saul Friedländer, UCLA, author of Nazi Germany and the Jews and The
Years of Extermination Written with empathy and perspicacity, Fire and Blood
takes the measure of the explosion of violence-revolutionary vs. counter-
revolutionary, fascist vs. anti-fascist, military vs. civilian-that
constituted the European 'civil war' of the first half of the twentieth
century. Enzo Traverso's admirable erudition and judiciousness make this work
an indispensable synthesis. -Anson Rabinbach, Princeton University Despite
thousands of books on the two world wars, we are still far from understanding
the violence that tore Europe apart between 1914 and 1945. By conceiving of
the conflict as a civil war, Enzo Traverso provides us with a new way to think
about the disaster that continues to shape the twenty-first century. -Joanna
Bourke, Birkbeck College Enzo Traverso's provocative book poses a profoundly
important question to modern history. How can we understand the 'age of
extremes' (1914 to 1945) from a present-our present day in the west-that is in
general terms allergic to 'ideology' and convinced that 'there is no
alternative'? What happens when an anodyne and self-satisfied liberalism
projects its values back into an earlier era of intense political struggle?
-Adam Tooze, Guardian Nuanced and erudite ... Fire and Blood is more than a
history of a catastrophe that began a hundred years ago. It is also a warning
of a potential future. -Ron Jacobs, CounterPunch Incisive, challenging, and
compelling interpretation of the European wars of annihilation, whose
consequences still reverberate. -George de Stefano, Pop Matters Remarkable.
-Jonathan Sturgeon, Flavorwire This wonderful book ... is not a simple history
of [the 1914-45 period]. Rather it examines the ideas which underlay the mass
movements of the inter war years, and why the morality of pre-1914 Europe was
undermined by a generation scarred by the horror of the First World War.
-Chris Bambery, CounterFire One must admire Traverso's ambitious synthesis of
theory and recent scholarship. -Shelley Baranowski, University of Akron This
is engaged history at its best ... Fire and Blood is a passionate and bracing
contribution to the issues that bedeviled Western political intellectuals in
the age of extremism. -Russell Jacoby, UCLA, author of Bloodlust and The Last
Intellectuals A remarkable study on the politics of violence. -Dan Diner,
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, author of America in the Eyes of the Germans
Fluently written and employing a synthetic approach that will appeal to the
common reader. -Nitzan Lebovic, Haaretz Enzo Traverso has pulled off the rare
reconstruction of a past epoch that pulsates with electric immediacy. Fire and
Blood fashions events happening seventy-five-to-one-hundred years ago to feel
as lively and pertinent as political debates taking place at present. - Alan
Wald, Against the Current Cannot be neglected by anyone with the temerity to
approach the subject in future. -Al Richardson, Revolutionary History A
magisterial interpretation of an epoch that threw Europe into chaos; it is one
of those great books on the twentieth century which will be discussed in the
coming years. -Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine, Le Monde [A] remarkable
reinterpretation of the history of the 'Thirty Years War' of the twentieth
century ... recreates the ethos of this time. -Michael Löwy, Le Monde
Diplomatique The latest historiographical work of Enzo Traverso is the result
of years, probably decades of investigation on the topics of wars, fascist
dictatorships, intellectual exile, the Holocaust and the Nazi violence. Until
now, he had approached them only separately, and today, at the height of his
historiographical
Singular Pasts offers a critical account of the emergence of authorial
subjectivity in historical writing, scrutinizing both its achievements and its
shortcomings. Enzo Traverso considers a group of contemporary historians who
reveal their emotional ties to their subjects and give their writing a
literary flavor.
Exploring the Holocaust's roots, Enzo Traverso presents extermination camps as a culmination of Europe's industrialization of killing and dehumanization. He challenges the view of the Holocaust as an anomaly, instead revealing a complex lineage of technological and cultural precedents, including the guillotine, machine gun, and ideologies of racial supremacy. By situating these elements within the broader context of European modernity, Traverso uncovers how mainstream ideas contributed to the horrors of Auschwitz, reshaping our understanding of this dark chapter in history.
In this updated and completely revised second edition, Enzo Traverso carefully
reconstructs the intellectual debate surrounding the Jewish Question' over a
century of Marxist thought.
The narrative explores the European crisis from 1914 to 1945 as a continuous conflict, framing it as an era of civil war marked by unprecedented violence and ideological fervor. It highlights how traditional warfare evolved into a brutal struggle for annihilation, with nations experiencing profound devastation. Enzo Traverso employs diverse sources to analyze wars, revolutions, and genocides, challenging simplistic views of totalitarianism and emphasizing the emotional and intellectual currents that influenced Europe's tumultuous history during this period.
In this collection of essays, Enzo Traverso examines the relationships between anti-Semitism, modernity and the Holocaust. The different parts of the book analyse multiple dimensions of the destruction of the European Jews, debates over historical memory and left-wing debates on the nature of anti-Semitism. Inspired by the critical theory of the Frankfurt School and the heterodox Marxism of a thinker like Walter Benjamin, Traverso argues that after Auschwitz, critical thought needs to reconsider the notion of progress as such. Enzo Traverso is the Susan and Barton Winokur Professor in the Humanities at Cornell University. His publications include: The New Faces of Fascism, Populism and the Far Right, Verso, 2019; Left-Wing Melancholia: Marxism, History, and Memory, Columbia University Press, 2017, The End of Jewish Modernity, Pluto Press, 2016; Fire and Blood: The European Civil War, 1914-1945, Verso, 2016; The Origins of Nazi Violence, New Press, 2003.
Debunks a myth: that once upon a time, there was a Judeo-German symbiosis, in which two cultures met and brought out the best in each other. This book argues that to the contrary, the attainments of Jews in the German-speaking world were due to the Jews aspiring to be German, with little help from and often against the open hostility of Germans.