The vast amount of serious research work on the Holocaust never reaches the general public and our notions of it are at the mercy of distortion and myth. As a result it is regarded as a horrific drama played out only between executioner Nazis and ghetto Jewish victims - in short, an aberration of history. This book dissolves this stereotype and places the Holocaust where it belongs - at the centre of modern European and world history. If such an event is not to be repeated, it is crucial to understand that genocide is a constant widespread threat to humanity, as witnessed in Cambodia, former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. The book provides a forthright guide to the horrifying meaning of the Holocaust for readers today.