Like Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem, born of her New Yorker essays, Guttenplan’s book springs from his Atlantic Monthly articles. In 1996, British military historian David Irving—author of WWII studies, biographer of Hitler, Himmler and Goebbels—sued American scholar Deborah Lipstadt for her book Denying the Holocaust, which labeled Irving an extremist liar and “one of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial.” Guttenplan, contributing editor at the Nation, makes the complex case navigable, from issues of the historian’s craft to British libel law (which, unlike American libel law, favors plaintiffs). Although Irving, Lipstadt and Judge Charles Gray unambiguously stated that history was not on trial, everyone else saw otherwise. Lipstadt’s British publisher Penguin incurred considerable expense for the legal defense for its author, who also had problematic Anti-Defamation League supporters; Irving received assistance from neo-Nazi acquaintances and from reputable historians (John Keegan) and iconoclastic journalists (Christopher Hitchens). Guttenplan’s fine journalistic style proves equal to the subject’s gravity. Readers not familiar with the intricacies of Holocaust historiography or British libel laws may flounder at times, but Guttenplan fluidly guides readers through most of the rough spots. In his hands, Irving is infinitely more interesting than the sympathetic Lipstadt, perhaps for the same reason that Dante’s Inferno engrosses more than his Paradise. Guttenplan only touches on deeper epistemological, historiographical and philosophical issues, but maybe these are for historians and philosophers. Although we know the trial’s outcome, the book creates delicious courtroom-thriller tension. Most important, it expertly introduces a crucial trial of our time. Four b&w photos. Agent, Andrew Wylie. (May 21)
Forecast: Norton has planned an author tour to New York and Washington, D.C., where the combination of Irving’s notoriety and Guttenplan’s readable treatment will stir up a great deal of interest and debate.
