Ron Rosenbaum

Last updated

Ronald Rosenbaum (born November 27, 1946) is an American literary journalist, [1] literary critic, and novelist.

Contents

Early life and education

Rosenbaum was born into a Jewish family in New York City and grew up in Bay Shore, New York, on Long Island. He graduated from Yale University in 1968 and won a Carnegie Fellowship to attend Yale's graduate program in English Literature, though he dropped out after taking one course.

Career

Rosenbaum began his career as an editor of The Fire Island News and then wrote for The Village Voice for several years, leaving in 1975 after which he wrote for Esquire , Harper's , High Times , Vanity Fair , New York Times Magazine , and Slate.

Rosenbaum spent more than ten years doing research on Adolf Hitler including travels to Vienna, Munich, London, Paris, and Jerusalem, interviewing leading historians, philosophers, biographers, theologians and psychologists. Some of those interviewed by Rosenbaum included Daniel Goldhagen, David Irving, Rudolph Binion, Claude Lanzmann, Hugh Trevor-Roper, Alan Bullock, Christopher Browning, George Steiner, and Yehuda Bauer. The result was his 1998 book, Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil .

In Explaining Hitler, Ron Rosenbaum also recounted in detail the previously little-reported story of the efforts of anti-Hitler journalists at the Munich Post who, from 1920 to 1933, published repeated exposés on the criminal activities of the National Socialist German Workers Party (i.e. the Nazis). Matthew Ricketson, coordinator of the Journalism program at RMIT University's School of Applied Communication in Melbourne, Australia, called this book "a brilliant piece of research". [2]

In 1987, he began writing a weekly column for the New York Observer called "The Edgy Enthusiast". He wrote a column for Slate called "The Spectator"; as of 2024, its last post was in 2016. In 2009, one of Rosenbaum's Spectator columns was a lengthy sardonic critique of pop music icon Billy Joel entitled "The Worst Pop Singer Ever."

In The Shakespeare Wars , he wrote about recent controversies among literary historians, actors, and directors over how the works of William Shakespeare should be read, understood, and produced.

His book How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War III, addresses the paradoxes of deterrence, the danger of nuclear proliferation, and whether the bomb comprises an argument about warfare and genocide.

In December 2015, Rosenbaum published the article "Thinking the Unthinkable", in which he expresses his view that there exists a frightening possibility that Israel might not survive as a nation. In it, he writes that, "The Palestinians want a Hitlerite Judenrein state, however much violence it takes to accomplish it. Not separation, elimination." The Palestinians are, he asserts, engaged in incessant state and religious incitement to murder Jews. The "stabbing intifada" is not an insurgency, but a matter of "the ritual murder of Jews". Whereas Hitler tried to hide his crimes, the Palestinians celebrate killing Jews. [3]

Bibliography

Books

Articles

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Irving</span> British author and Holocaust denier

David John Cawdell Irving is an English author who has written on the military and political history of World War II, especially Nazi Germany. He was found to be a Holocaust denier in a UK court in 2000 as a result of a failed libel case.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hans Frank</span> German politician and war criminal (1900–1946)

Hans Michael Frank was a German politician, war criminal, and lawyer who served as head of the General Government in German-occupied Poland during the Second World War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hugh Trevor-Roper</span> British Historian (1914–2003)

Hugh Redwald Trevor-Roper, Baron Dacre of Glanton, was an English historian. He was Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benny Morris</span> Israeli historian (born 1948)

Benny Morris is an Israeli historian. He was a professor of history in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Beersheba, Israel. Morris was initially associated with the group of Israeli historians known as the "New Historians", a term he coined to describe himself and historians Avi Shlaim, Ilan Pappé and Simha Flapan. Scholars have perceived an ideological shift in Morris's work starting around 2000, during the Second Intifada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alois Hitler</span> Father of Adolf Hitler

Alois Hitler was an Austrian civil servant in the customs service, and the father of Adolf Hitler, dictator of Germany from 1933 to 1945.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geli Raubal</span> Adolf Hitlers half-niece and companion (1908–1931)

Angela Maria "Geli" Raubal was an Austrian woman who was the half-niece of Adolf Hitler. Born in Linz, Austria-Hungary, she was the second child and eldest daughter of Leo Raubal Sr. and Hitler's half-sister, Angela Raubal. Raubal lived in close contact with her half-uncle Adolf from 1925 until her presumed suicide in 1931.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucy Dawidowicz</span> American historian and writer (1915–1990)

Lucy Dawidowicz was an American historian and writer. She wrote books about modern Jewish history, in particular, about the Holocaust.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christopher R. Browning</span> American historian of the Holocaust

Christopher Robert Browning is an American historian and is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). A specialist on the Holocaust, Browning is known for his work documenting the Final Solution, the behavior of those implementing Nazi policies, and the use of survivor testimony. He is the author of nine books, including Ordinary Men (1992) and The Origins of the Final Solution (2004).

Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights, Brooklyn and Other Identities (1992) is a one-person play by Anna Deavere Smith, an African-American playwright, author, actress, and professor. It explores the Crown Heights riot and its aftermath through the viewpoints of African-American and Jewish people, mostly based in New York City, who were connected directly and indirectly to the riot.

The functionalism–intentionalism debate is a historiographical debate about the reasons for the Holocaust as well as most aspects of the Third Reich, such as foreign policy. It essentially centres on two questions:

<i>Münchener Post</i> German socialist newspaper (1888–1933)

The Münchener Post was a socialist newspaper published in Munich, Germany, from 1888 to 1933. The paper was known for its decade-long campaign against Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party before their accession to power. It was shut down by Hitler in March 1933 immediately after he became the Reich Chancellor.

<i>Hitlers Willing Executioners</i> Book by Daniel Goldhagen

Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust is a 1996 book by American writer Daniel Goldhagen, in which he argues collective guilt, that the vast majority of ordinary Germans were "willing executioners" in the Holocaust because of a unique and virulent "eliminationist antisemitism" in German political culture which had developed in the preceding centuries. Goldhagen argues that eliminationist antisemitism was the cornerstone of German national identity, was unique to Germany, and because of it ordinary German conscripts killed Jews willingly. Goldhagen asserts that this mentality grew out of medieval attitudes rooted in religion and was later secularized.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeffrey Goldberg</span> American journalist

Jeffrey Mark Goldberg is an American journalist and editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine. During his nine years at The Atlantic prior to becoming editor, Goldberg became known for his coverage of foreign affairs. Goldberg became moderator of the PBS program Washington Week in August 2023, while continuing as The Atlantic's editor.

The Shakespeare Wars: Clashing Scholars, Public Fiascos, Palace Coups is a 2006 book by Ron Rosenbaum.

<i>Explaining Hitler</i> 1998 book by Ron Rosenbaum

Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil is a 1998 book by historian-journalist Ron Rosenbaum, in which the author discusses his struggles with the "exceptionalist" character of Adolf Hitler's personality and impact on the world or, worse, his struggle with the possibility that Hitler is not an exception at all, but on the natural continuum of human destructive possibility.

<i>The Kindly Ones</i> (Littell novel) Book by Jonathan Littell

The Kindly Ones is a 2006 historical fiction novel written in French by American-born author Jonathan Littell. The book is narrated by its fictional protagonist Maximilien Aue, a former SS officer of French and German ancestry who was a Holocaust perpetrator and was present during several major events of World War II.

Jean-Claude Pressac was a French pharmacist by profession, who became a published authority on the Auschwitz concentration camp homicidal gas chambers deployed during the Holocaust in World War II. He was the author of the 1989 book Auschwitz: Technique and operation of the gas chambers among other publications on the subject, which demonstrated the technical possibility of mass killing by gas chambers during the Holocaust, thus debunking many falsehoods promoted by Holocaust deniers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sexuality of Adolf Hitler</span>

The sexuality of Adolf Hitler, dictator of Germany from 1933 to 1945, has long been a matter of historical and scholarly debate, as well as speculation and rumour. There is evidence that he had relationships with a number of women during his lifetime, as well as evidence of his antipathy to homosexuality, and no evidence of homosexual encounters. His name has been linked to a number of possible female lovers, two of whom committed suicide. A third died of complications eight years after a suicide attempt, and a fourth also attempted suicide.

<i>The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H.</i> 1981 novella by George Steiner

The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H. is a 1981 literary and philosophical novella by George Steiner. The story is about Jewish Nazi hunters who find a fictional Adolf Hitler (A.H.) alive in the Amazon jungle thirty years after the end of World War II. The book was controversial, particularly among reviewers and Jewish scholars, because the author allows Hitler to defend himself when he is put on trial in the jungle by his captors. There Hitler maintains that Israel owes its existence to the Holocaust and that he is the "benefactor of the Jews".

Harold L. Hering is a former officer of the United States Air Force, who was discharged in 1975 for requesting basic information about checks and balances to prevent an unauthorized order to launch nuclear missiles. Hering was subsequently presented the 2017 Courage of Conscience Award at the Peace Abbey, Boston, Massachusetts.

References

  1. Ravished by Shakespeare By WALTER KIRN, Published: October 8, 2006, New York Times
  2. Rosenbaum, Ron (2004-07-01). "Racism: power and the press". The Fifth Estate. Archived from the original on 2007-09-20.
  3. Ron Rosenbaum, "Thinking the Unthinkable: A Lamentation for the State of Israel", Tablet, December 2015.
  4. Smithsonian often changes the title of a print article when it is published online. This article is titled "What turned Jaron Lanier against the web?" online.